Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley weighed in on Letitia James’ latest move to seize Trump’s assets.
Marxist New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday took the initial step to seize Trump’s assets. She filed judgments in Westchester County where Trump’s private estate and golf course is located.
President Trump has until Monday to either pay the judgment or convince the appellate court to allow him to defer the payment pending appeal.
Turley said James’ effort to seize his assets and padlock Trump Tower is not likely to happen because Trump’s properties are complex partnerships with leveraged debt.
“The penalty handed down is absurd,” Turley said to Fox Business host Larry Kudlow.
“These properties are partnerships, they have leveraged debt – all of that has to be unraveled. So these aren’t just this, you know, the one-to-one Trump versus James type of equation. So in order to seize that property, she’s going to be pulled into court, there’s going to be challenges. It’s not going to happen overnight. While everyone is celebrating this idea that she’s going to padlock Trump Tower. It’s not likely to happen, and it’s certainly not likely to remain very long.”
Turley continued, “The other thing is that she could be harming the value of the property that she’s trying to seize with some of these actions. I don’t think that matters to her, but it might matter to a court.”
WATCH:
Jonathan Turley Pours Cold Water On Letitia James’ Plans To Seize Trump’s Assets pic.twitter.com/94VCC5ihpe
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Trump’s legal team has filed an appeal and requested a stay on the massive $464 million judgment.
On Thursday Trump’s attorneys sent a letter to the Appellate Division of New York’s Supreme Court and asserted Letitia James’ actions are “unconstitutional.”
“It would be completely illogical — and the definition of an unconstitutional Excessive Fine and a Taking — to require Defendants to sell properties at all, and especially in a ‘fire sale,’ in order to be able to appeal the lawless Supreme Court judgment, as that would cause harm that cannot be repaired once the Defendants do win, as is overwhelmingly likely, on appeal,” Trump’s attorney Cliff Robert wrote.
Trump’s attorney also said Letitia James’ demand that Trump pay the judgment in full in order to appeal is “unreasonable, unjust, and unconstitutional (under both the Federal and New York State Constitutions) bond condition, which would cause irreparable harm and foreclose any review of Supreme Court’s deeply flawed decision in this case.”
Far-left New York Judge Arthur Engoron on Thursday also ruled Trump must inform a court-appointed monitor *in advance* about his effort to secure appeal bonds in Letitia James’ Soviet-style fraud case with no victim.
The independent court monitor, Barbara Jones, is a former federal judge appointed by Bill Clinton.