One of Donald Trump's biographers, Tim O'Brien, disputed the claim that inflating assets has been a victimless crime for the banks that he's dealt with.
MSNBC's Ari Melber welcomed his former boss, David N. Kelley, who previously served as the assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to the show. The host asked whether Judge Arthur Engoron is likely to give Trump a hefty fine at or over $300 million.
He remarked that Judge Engoron may be prepared to give Trump a small pass regarding the hefty fine that the company may be forced to pay over the fraud crimes.
"You know, it's an interesting question, Ari," Kelley began. "But the two big issues are the intent to defraud, and they point to Michael Cohen as being an incredible witness and then no harm, no foul. I think there's some — in the latter argument, there's some weight there that could temper the judge in terms of how high he goes. I think there's something to that argument."
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"I think viscerally, if I'm the judge, I would have that weighing on my mind. I don't have a victim. I have banks who did admit to being victims of fraud. I have a system in place where everybody plays the same game."
Melber summed it up by saying, "Don't hate the player, hate the game."
But O'Brien said that, in fact, these are not victimless crimes, particularly when looking at the wider scope of the Trump Organization's business practices.
"You know, even if the banks weren't damaged here, you're not allowed to misrepresent the state of your finances to someone who's lending you money," he prefaced. "Even if they end up undamaged, there should be a standard there you can't enter into a business relationship contractually on false grounds. If the banks weren't damaged this round, let's not forget Donald Trump's entire business empire in the early 1990s."
While Trump personally hasn't filed for bankruptcy, he has businesses that have filed for bankruptcy six times, for five companies.
"He almost went personally bankrupt," O'Brien explained. "Banks had to write off billions of dollars in loans and suffered as a result. The statute of limitations has run, but Donald Trump has had a history of misrepresenting himself to businesses in any number of endeavors. We can see through Trump University and his foundation he's misrepresented himself over and over."
Melber explained that with Trump University, there were victims, and the company was forced to pay out $50 million.
"I agree with David that the issue of whether the banks were harmed is material and important. When we litigated with Trump, he sued me. I said he was worth less than a billion dollars. He said he was worth $6 billion. During the course of the litigation, we got Deutsche Bank records. They did their own due diligence and represented he was worth about $780 million. If Trump's lawyers had been sharp enough to request a jury trial, they might have ended up in a better place."
See the full discussion in the video below or click here.
Trump’s history of near bankruptcy proves his fraud isn’t a 'victimless crime': biographerwww.youtube.com
