Trump Fraud Judge Says Jury Was Never an Option

One of the complaints that Donald Trump has repeatedly had about the fraud case brought against him by New York Attorney General Letitia James has been that he has no jury.

This complaint has been exacerbated by the fact that the presiding judge, Judge Arther Engoron, has seemingly made up his mind long before this case was tried.

He tried to shut down the narrative regarding Trump’s jury complaint this week, stating that a jury trial was never an option for Trump.

Never an Option

According to an ABC News report, Engoron stated, “We are having a non-jury trial because we are hearing a non-jury case.”

Engoron assured everyone that this was not a mistake on anyone’s part, simply because it was an “equitable” relief case, which does not warrant a jury.

He added, “It would have not helped to make a motion. Nobody forgot to check off a box.”

Alina Habba had brought this up during her opening statement, complaining that Trump wanted a jury trial so they could hear the so-called evidence in the case regarding the ridiculous valuations of Trump’s properties.

She stated, “There was never an option to choose a jury trial.

“It is unfortunate that a jury won’t be able to hear how absurd the merits of this case are and conclude no wrongdoing ever happened.”

James had tried to make the case that Trump pumped up his financial worth in order to secure loans.

As part of her evidence, she cited a valuation of Mar-a-Lago for $18 million.

Now, I am not a financial expert or realtor by any means, but I had a friend of mine who is in the business check local listings, and he was laughing at the shortfall of that valuation.

There are regular homes in that area that have a fraction of the space of Mar-a-Lago that sold for 10 times that number.

When you consider the size, location, and benefits of Mar-a-Lago, even a lowball estimate would be about $500 million, but most of the reports that I have seen on this put the club at closer to $1 billion, which would account for about 40% of the figure that Trump quoted on his forms.

When you consider all of the golf courses he owns around the world, that $2.5B number seems quite modest.