The pathetic loser con-man in the White House is trying to dodge a $500,000,000 judgment for civil fraud.
The New York court weighing President Trump’s appeal of a roughly $500 million civil-fraud judgment typically acts swiftly and unanimously, with many of its decisions coming within weeks after hearing arguments.
Trump’s experience stands out as an unusual exception.
A five-justice panel has yet to render a decision nearly a year after taking up the case, leaving him and his business in limbo. Behind the scenes, members of the panel have been divided, and three of them have been writing opinions, according to people familiar with the matter. It couldn’t be determined how they are split. Justices do occasionally shift their positions, and the number of opinions could change, the people said.
A spokesman for the New York state court system said it doesn’t comment on pending litigation. A spokesman for Trump’s legal team said, “It is time for the New York Courts to step in and end this witch hunt once and for all.”
For the New York Appellate Division’s First Department, the Trump matter is among the most high-profile cases in its history, and the outcome could influence future business regulation in the state. For Trump, whose legal entanglements largely faded after his return to the White House, the fraud case is his main private legal headache. At stake isn’t only the half-billion dollar penalty, growing by the day with interest, but the possibility that his sons could be barred from running his family company in the near term. The president asks regularly why the court hasn’t ruled, said people who speak to him.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, sued Trump in 2022, alleging he fraudulently inflated the value of parts of his real-estate empire for financial benefit, primarily lower-interest loans. Justice Arthur Engoron presided over a monthslong civil trial and ruled James proved her case, which relied upon a state statute that grants the attorney general broad authority to investigate “persistent fraud or illegality” in business.
The judge in February 2024 ordered Trump to pay more than $350 million plus interest and imposed an array of other sanctions that restricted the Trump Organization from borrowing money and effectively prohibited Trump’s two eldest sons from running the business for two years. Trump quickly appealed, and the First Department put those restrictions on hold while it considered the case.
The appeals court heard arguments this past September, and some of the judges’ questions appeared favorable to Trump. One wondered whether there should be some “guardrails” on the attorney general’s power. Another questioned the size of the judgment. “The immense penalty in this case is troubling,” said Justice Peter Moulton. A lawyer for James defended it: “There was a lot of fraud.”
Other justices appeared to see James’s lawsuit as within the bounds of the law, despite the Trump lawyers’ arguments that banks didn’t lose money and no victims were harmed. Presiding Justice Dianne Renwick noted the statute refers to “persistent fraud or illegality,” but not harm.
Lengthy waits and disagreeing judges are a common occurrence on some appeals courts. But recent leadership of the First Judicial Department, which reviews thousands of lower-court decisions and motions annually, has emphasized speed.
The First Department typically issues decisions within 30 days, according to a 2024 court report. For each of the past five years, that report said, the court began its new annual session each September with zero pending and undecided appeals.
“Is this normal? No,” said Bill White, a lawyer at appellate consulting firm Counsel Press. “This is something I imagine they are anxious to have on their docket for so long, with everyone’s expectation and the pressure building.”
Alongside that promptness has come unanimity. From 2024 through this July, the court decided roughly 2,900 appeals, according to an analysis of public court data. Only about two dozen of those rulings—or less than .01%—came with a recorded dissent.
If the court upholds the trial judge’s decision, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. would be barred from holding a position as an officer of a New York company for two years. Trump and his company for three years couldn’t apply for loans from financial institutions registered in New York. The losing side can appeal to the state’s highest court.
The wait has cost the company. It is paying a court-appointed monitor, the former federal judge Barbara Jones, whom Trump lawyers previously accused of charging “exorbitant fees” amounting to more than $2.6 million over 14 months. On top of that, Trump has paid more than $2 million in fees on the bond he secured to guarantee the judgment while he appeals, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The panel hearing the Trump appeal includes four judges appointed by Democratic governors and one Republican appointee, David Friedman, who is regarded as among the most conservative of the court’s 21 members. The court’s presiding justice, Renwick, also on the panel, is viewed as a stalwart liberal who has an institutional interest in seeking consensus and guarding the court’s reputation.
