A CNN panel on Wednesday took aim at claims that former President Donald Trump's fraudulent manipulation of his assets' values amounted to a "victimless" crime.
David Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, made the case that shareholders of banks who lent to Trump were essentially being ripped off by the sanction of artificially cheap loans that were offered to the former president.
"One of the things that is going on here... and the reason this case is so serious is, I think a lot of these bank officers did know that Trump was lying to them and they were working with him against their shareholders," he argued. "There was a larger scheme of corruption here of this bad borrower who should have been paying 23 percent interest rate... these are unsecured loans, this is what you pay when you get a credit card and there's no security. He should have been paying 23 percent -- he shouldn't be getting the loans at all!"
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Frum went on to say that the bankers who lent Trump money got rewarded with bonuses even as they "stuck their bank shareholders with the risk that the loan could go bad."
Former Sen. Doug Jones (D-AL) agreed with Frum's take and then shared his perspective as a former prosecutor.
"As a prosecutor, it's not always about the loss to the victim," he said. "It's about the profits that could not have been obtained but for the false statements. The Trump Organization made money off of lying, they made money off of giving these false statements. And that is just not sustainable. It could shatter the entire system up there."
Watch the video below or at this link.
Panel wrecks claim that Trump's fraud was 'victimless'www.youtube.com
