Jonathan Turley eviscerates Arthur Engoron

Judge Arthur Engoron will soon be seen as an historic figure. The bad news for Judge Engoron is that he's historic for the wrong reasons. Jonathan Turley made certain opf Judge Engoron's infamy in the opening paragraphs of this op-ed. In opening his Fox News op-ed, Turley wrote "n New York, a court revealed that a leading citizen had cooked the books by inflating questionable figures without any support in reality. Moreover, his wild overvaluation was widely viewed as motivated by his self-aggrandizement. The final reported figures are so absurdly inflated that they were rejected in their entirety. In the end, he was off by over half a billion dollars. That man is Judge Arthur Engoron."

From there, Prof. Turley's evisceration of Judge Engoron started in earnest. Turley wrote "After a New York appellate court unanimously threw out Engoron’s absurd half-a-billion-dollar judgment and interest against President Donald Trump, the irony was crushing. It was Engoron who seemed, as he characterized Trump witnesses, as having 'simply denied reality.' It made his notorious reliance on an assessment of Mar-a-Lago as worth between $18 million and $27.6 million seem like good accounting."

Prof. Turley wrote this:

Democrat New York Attorney General Letitia James had injected lawfare directly into the veins of New Yorkers. Pledging in her campaign to bag Trump (without bothering to name any crime or violation), James was elected based on her recreational rather than legal appeal.

Yet, James could not have succeeded if she had not had a judge willing to ignore reality and cook the books on the fines. She needed a partner in lawfare. She needed Engoron.

Let's be clear. Prof. Turley eviscerated Judge Engoron but he couldn't have done it without the help of "Judge David Friedman", who "gave Engoron a close-up that would have made Swanson wince. He detailed how the underlying law 'has never been used in the way it is being used in this case – namely, to attack successful, private, commercial transactions, negotiated at arm’s length between highly sophisticated parties fully capable of monitoring and defending their own interests."

This is the final nail in Judge Engoron's professional coffin:

Other judges said that Engoron’s fine was so off base and engorged that it was an unconstitutional order under the Eighth Amendment, protecting citizens from "cruel and unusual" punishments. So, Engoron not only inflated the figures but shredded the Constitution in his effort to deliver a blow against Trump.

The truth is that Judge Engoron, District Attorney Alvin Bragg and NY State Attorney General Letitia James belong in the Lawfare Hall of Shame. This trifecta of legal hacks deserve whatever ridicule they receive. Finally, there's this:

The remnants of the case are expected to get thrown out in subsequent appeals. When that happens, Judge Engoron's position in the Lawfare Hall of Shame will be cemented. From that point forward, this ruling will live in infamy.