Constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax on Tuesday that the $464 million judgment against Donald Trump in the New York civil fraud case is "unconscionable" and "unconstitutional," and it is designed to prevent the former president from being able to appeal.
"It encourages lawless judges to simply impose fines that are so high that nobody can ever get the bond to appeal, and it means that they preclude themselves from being reversed on appeal," Dershowitz said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "It's unconscionable, and the state of New York has to change the process. I would hope that the New York Court of Appeals would do something about it.
"It just gives the judges the incentive to impose high fines to avoid being reversed on appeal. In this case, the fine was outrageous and will be lowered on appeal. Nobody has ever heard of a fine of close to a half a billion dollars without a finding of any damage whatsoever. Nobody was hurt. No lender, no bank was hurt. The money was made up."
Trump has thus far been unable to obtain a bond that would allow him to appeal the $464 million judgment against him without posting the full amount himself, his attorneys said Monday.
Trump must either find the cash or post a bond to prevent New York authorities from seizing his properties while he appeals last month's ruling.
Dershowitz said Justice Arthur Engoron imposed such a high fine to prevent Trump from being able to appeal.
"The purpose of imposing so high a fine was precisely to prevent the appellate courts from slapping down the judge and saying, What are you thinking? That kind of money for this kind of event?" Dershowitz said. "It's a cruel and unusual fine in violation of the Eighth Amendment and the process by which he's being denied an appeal is also in violation of the Eighth Amendment.
"I hope his lawyers will bring these matters to the attention of the higher courts because it affects not only Donald Trump. This kind of a tactic, this ploy, could be used by judges against anybody. Impose a high fine, make it impossible for you to raise the bail and then avoid being reversed on appeal."
Compounding Trump's legal woes, Dershowitz said, is the difficulty in obtaining first-rate legal counsel due to a campaign of intimidation.
"Trump has had a hard time getting the top, top, top-tier attorneys in many instances because there's an organization called Project 65, a McCarthy-ite left-wing organization which has as its goal deterring lawyers from representing Trump," Dershowitz said. "They file bar charges, including one against me, and any other lawyer who defends Trump.
"I've had lawyers call me and say we'd love to defend the former president, but we can't afford to have a bar charge. I'm obviously fighting mine — everybody should.
"There's a systematic effort by this McCarthy-ite, unethical Project 65 to prevent lawyers from defending Trump and, unfortunately, it's working."
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Nicole Wells ✉
Nicole Wells, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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