Today’s law and crime news — Trump filed a plea of not guilty in the Georgia case. But the far more interesting news is out of New York.
Yesterday Attorney General Letitia James asked a judge to find that Trump had fraudulently overvalued his assets. The judge should do this without bothering with the trial thing, James said. I believe that’s called a “summary judgment.” James alleges that Trump had lied about his assets over a period of several years in order to get loans, and the lies overstated his worth by between $812 million and $2.2 billion each year over the course of a decade.
Trump’s lawyers are asking to get the suit dismissed. They say most of these loans happened too long ago to be litigated now. There is, apparently, some precedent for their argument. If the Trump lawyers prevail, James’s case will be severely limited.
But also yesterday Trump’s deposition to James from last April was unsealed. And it’s a doozy. Among other things, Trump claimed to have averted nuclear war with North Korea.
MR. TRUMP: I was very busy. I was — I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives. I think you would have nuclear holocaust, if I didn’t deal with North Korea. I think you would have a nuclear war, if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now, if you want to know the truth.
In other words, while he was POTUS he was too busy saving us all from thermonuclear destruction to be bothered with petty details about the value of assets.
The deposition is a terrific window into what kind of witness El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago is going to be over the next couple of years, and into what his strategy is going to be in the various courtrooms in which he’ll be engaged. He will attempt to turn them all into facsimiles of his rallies. He will bloviate, prevaricate, denounce, distract, and deplore. Judges are going to need a whip and a chair.
Of course, Kim Jung Un still has all the nuclear capabilities he had when Trump became POTUS, and he is planning to expand them. The BBC reported today that North Korea recently fired two short-range ballistic missiles to simulate nuclear strikes on military targets in South Korea. Kim is just as treacherous as he ever was. Trump accomplished nothing. But you knew that.
I understand Trump is continuing to launch social media screeds against “prosecutors, judges, witnesses, the FBI, DOJ, and the justice system broadly.” Will nothing be done?
In other what the bleep news — Justice Clarence Thomas now is saying he had to accept flights on private jets for security reasons after the Dobbs leak. Seriously.
Here’s some housekeeping.
I haven’t heard any more from our friend gulag, and I’m getting worried again. Although he sounded optimistic when I heard from him last week, he must be having a rough time. If anyone wants his email to send a cheer-up note, just say yes in the comments. I believe I have your email addresses.
Also, thanks so much for your response to the recent mini-fundraiser. I received more than enough to fill in the shortfall, so I won’t nag you any more about it. (Although I won’t object to more donations.)
Update: Proud Boy Joe Biggs Sentenced To 17 Years Over Jan. 6 Plot