<The judge who hit Donald Trump and his real estate company with fines expected to exceed $450 million in New York state’s civil fraud trial against the former president made clear in his decision that he doubted testimony of key witnesses, including the billionaire and three of his children.

Justice Arthur Engoron, who oversaw a nearly 11-week trial, wrote in his Friday verdict that he’d weighed the “expressions, demeanor, and body language” of witnesses as they testified a few feet away, as well as “simple touchstones of self-interest and other motives, common sense, and overall veracity.”

In the end, Engoron found Trump, his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were liable for submitting “blatantly false financial data” year after year to get better terms on loans, as alleged by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The judge, who sometimes asked the Trumps direct questions on the stand, described them in his verdict as having a lack of remorse that “borders on pathological.” “Instead, they adopt a ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’ posture that the evidence belies,” Engoron wrote.

Donald Trump

The former president and lead defendant in the case was the star witness, but his meandering and combative testimony went off the rails and almost resulted in his removal from the courtroom. Trump “equivocated” at times and didn’t recall conversations about seemingly crucial asset valuations, the judge said.

Engoron wrote that when Trump was confronted on the stand with the 2002 deed in which he permanently gave up the right to use or develop his Mar-a-Lago estate “as anything other than as a social club” in exchange for a tax benefit, the former president said: “when you say, ‘intend,’ intend doesn’t mean we will do it.”

Despite being confronted with evidence that Mar-a-Lago is worth hundreds of millions of dollars less than he claims, Trump testified that he believed Mar-a-Lago is worth “between a billion and a billion five” today.

Engoron said in his verdict that such a figure “would require not only valuing it as a private residence, which the deed prohibits, but as more than the most expensive private residence listed in the country by approximately 400%.”

Trump was similarly asked on the stand if he’d been misquoted in a 2015 Forbes article in which he said his 40 Wall Street tower in Manhattan was 72 stories tall instead of the actual 63, resulting in a $50 million over-valuation.

“I don’t know,” Trump testified. “I don’t know what I said.”....>

<....Donald Trump Jr.

Trump’s eldest son testified that as trustee he certified that he was responsible for his father’s annual statements of financial condition — the documents at the center of the case — and ensuring they were prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, often shortened to GAAP, in the US, the judge said.

The verdict included a play by play of every time Donald Trump Jr. testified he didn’t know about GAAP while agreeing that he verified the rules had been met. And he knew the statements were critical documents for lenders, the judge said.

“He did this every year from 2017 to 2021 despite having no knowledge of the requirements of GAAP, never having been employed in a position that required him to apply GAAP, and never having received any training,” Engoron wrote.

Engoron noted that Trump’s eldest son repeatedly said he relied on others to ensure the accuracy of the documents, but couldn’t remember who. The judge said he mistakenly testified that Mark Hawthorn became CFO of his father’s company after Allen Weisselberg left.

“However, the CFO position has remained unfilled since Allen Weisselberg departed the Trump Organization,” Engoron wrote.

Eric Trump

Engoron said in his verdict that Trump’s other adult son, Eric Trump, had “severely damaged” his credibility on the stand when he “repeatedly denied knowing that his father ever even compiled” annual statements of financial condition “that valued his assets and showed his net worth” until the lawsuit was filed.

“Upon being confronted with copious documentary evidence conclusively demonstrating otherwise, he finally conceded that, at least as early as August 20, 2013, he knew about his father’s SFCs,” the judge wrote, with Eric Trump “begrudgingly acknowledging” the fact on the stand.

“It appears that way, yes,” Eric Trump said.

The judge also criticized Eric Trump’s testimony that he had “very limited involvement” in the appraisal work on one of his favorite properties, the Seven Springs estate near New York City. That testimony “was shown to be false when he was confronted with the ample contemporaneous documentary evidence demonstrating otherwise,” the judge wrote.

A key witness and defendant, former comptroller Jeffrey McConney, provided spreadsheets showing he relied on Eric Trump when valuing Seven Springs on his father’s statement of financial condition — including for years when the property was inflated to include the value of mansions that didn’t exist, according to the verdict. That contradicted Eric Trump’s assertion that he “never had anything to do with the statement of financial condition,” the judge said.

Ivanka Trump

The former president’s eldest daughter worked on some her father’s biggest development deals before leaving the Trump Organization in 2017. Ivanka Trump was dismissed from the suit by an appeals court, but was called to testify anyway by the state. Engoron described her as a “thoughtful, articulate, and poised witness,” but said her “inconsistent recall” of events was “suspect.”

“In any event, what Ms. Trump cannot recall is memorialized in contemporaneous emails and documents; in the absence of her memory, the documents speak for themselves,” particularly in regards to the massive loans she helped secure from Deutsche Bank AG, the judge wrote.

Ivanka Trump “consistently denied” recalling the contents of documents and emails that “confirmed that she actively participated in events” even after the evidence was shown to her at trial.

“On direct examination by plaintiff, Ivanka Trump had no recollection of any of the events that gave rise to this action; no number of emails or documents with her signature served to refresh her recollection,” the judge wrote. “Notably, on cross-examination by defendants’ counsel, Ms. Trump suddenly and vividly recalled details of the projects.”>

<Back in 2019, when then-candidate Joe Biden was campaigning on the promise of restoring “normalcy” to American politics after three years of almost daily scandal and chaos in the White House, he made a prediction that would regularly come back to haunt him after becoming president. “The thing that will fundamentally change things,” said the former vice president at a campaign event in New Hampshire, “is with Donald Trump out of the White House. You will see an epiphany occur among many of my Republican friends.”

This was a remarkable statement coming from the man who had served eight years as vice president under President Barack Obama, whose administration faced unprecedented levels of Republican obstructionism throughout most of his two terms. But it was also consistent with the former veep’s lifelong faith in bipartisan cooperation. Biden’s view of politics had been shaped by the nearly four decades he spent in the Senate, where he frequently worked with his Republican colleagues on bipartisan legislation (for better or worse). As a creature of the world's “greatest deliberative body,” Biden had always seen politics as an art of the possible, with compromise — not conflict — extolled as the highest principle. As journalist Franklin Foer elaborates in his acclaimed book on Biden’s presidency, The Last Politician, politics for Biden is the “means by which a society mediates its difference of opinion, allowing for peaceful coexistence.” By this definition, it is an “ethos that requires tolerance of competing truth” and a “set of rules whereby the side that fails to prevail in democratic decision-making accepts its defeat.”

One could hardly find a more antithetical vision of Biden’s politics than the one currently held by most Republicans, who — contra to Biden’s prediction — have yet to rediscover their long-lost commitment to bipartisan compromise. Indeed, if the past three years have shown us anything, it is that Republicans hardly need Donald Trump in the White House to push them towards anti-democratic extremes.

For Republicans in the age of Trump, politics has degraded to something akin to war. It is a matter of “friends” and “enemies,” to borrow the famous distinction made a century ago by the “crown jurist” of Nazi Germany, Carl Schmitt. According to that notorious critic of liberalism, who many on the so-called “New Right” have come to embrace in recent years, the political represents “the most intense and extreme antagonism” between adversaries who seek to “negate” each other’s “way of life.” In the Schmittian view of politics, then, there is no way to forestall a “decisive bloody battle” (despite the efforts of liberals to transform politics into “everlasting discussion”). Post-Trump Republicans have effectively adopted Schmitt’s “friend-enemy” distinction as their own, while abandoning any previous commitments — tenuous as they were — to democratic compromise.

The attempt by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election was the clearest example yet that a growing number of Republicans no longer grant any legitimacy to their political opponents or to America’s electoral system. After January 6, some anticipated a reckoning inside the GOP. In the days that followed the capital riot it was widely assumed that Trump and his allies had finally gone too far and would now face real consequences for their actions — in this case a concerted attempt to block the peaceful transfer of power. But the subsequent normalization and trivialization of January 6 on the right shows that there is no going back to how things were before Trump. Indeed, the practical coronation of the former president as the 2024 Republican candidate confirms that Republicans have gone all in on Trump and his personal crusade against American democracy.

The sheer degree to which Trump has captured the Republican Party became all the more clear earlier this month when Republicans torpedoed a bipartisan deal on border security that had been negotiated in the Senate for months. That deal, which was tied to Ukraine funding, represented major concessions from Biden to the right on immigration — concessions that angered many of those to Biden’s left. The border deal would have vastly increased funding for immigration enforcement, reduced the number of accepted asylum seekers from already low levels, and expedited the deportation process. But in the end, it was the right that blew up their own deal when it was effectively vetoed by their presumptive nominee in a flagrant attempt to keep chaos at the border alive.....>

<....“A Border Deal now would be another Gift to the Radical Left Democrats,” declared Trump, acknowledging that prolonging the border crisis was a winning strategy for his campaign. Rather than voting for a bill that would have dramatically cracked down on the border and increased the number of agents, House Republicans instead chose to impeach the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, in a political stunt that marked the first time a Cabinet member has been impeached since 1876.

The collapse of the border deal came against the backdrop of an unfolding crisis in Texas, where state officials have refused to allow federal immigration agents access to a section of the border along the Rio Grande. After the Supreme Court ruled that Texas had to give federal border agents access in late January, the Lone Star state’s governor Greg Abbott issued a defiant statement in which he invoked long-discredited constitutional theories employed by Southern secessionists in the lead up to the Civil War. Declaring that the federal government had “broken the compact” between the states by failing to protect them from “invasion” — in this case, illegal immigration — the right-wing governor proclaimed that Texas had “supreme” authority that “supersedes any federal statutes to the contrary,” putting forward a modern spin on the concept of nullification. As Stephen Vladeck, a legal scholar at the University of Texas School of Law, observed in the Houston Chronicle, Abbott’s argument has “eerie parallels” to the Antebellum-era idea that “states have the right to ‘nullify’ federal laws that they believe are unconstitutional, whether or not the courts agree with them.” It also rests on a blatant misinterpretation of the Constitution. To justify his claims of “supreme” power, the governor cited an obscure clause that was actually intended to limit state powers, while offering a specious definition of “invasion” that was refuted by James Madison over two centuries ago.

Abbott’s embrace of Antebellum-era constitutional theories might have once earned him universal condemnation, but in 2024 it earned him almost unanimous praise from his fellow Republicans. In a joint statement issued shortly after Abbot’s, 25 Republican governors expressed their support for his defiance of both the Biden administration and the Supreme Court. Echoing their Texas counterpart, the governors accused the Biden administration of abdicating its “constitutional compact duties to the states.” Multiple governors have even sent some of their own troops and personnel to support the Texas governor in his standoff with the feds, which is currently ongoing....>

<....The crisis alongside the Texas border is just the latest instance of Republicans looking back to the Antebellum era for precedents to justify their increasingly atavistic behavior. Back in November, for example, Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin cited the notorious 1856 caning of the Republican abolitionist Charles Sumner in the senate chamber as a precedent for him challenging Teamsters president Sean O’Brien to a fistfight during a committee hearing. “Well, we looked into the rules, and you know, you used to be able to cane,” remarked the Oklahoma senator, who also pointed approvingly to the numerous duels of former president Andrew Jackson. “Maybe we should bring some of that back,” he mused. The vicious assault of Sumner by a slave-owning congressman — which nearly killed the Massachusetts senator — was not, in fact, deemed acceptable at the time, and triggered a national firestorm. But it was largely supported by the slave-defending Southern Democrats who would lead an insurrection just a few years later.

With this kind of embrace of violence in the highest legislative body in the land, it is no wonder that political violence has surged over the past decade. Since 2016, the United States has undergone the “biggest and most sustained increase in political violence since the 1970s,” with the overwhelming majority of deadly attacks coming from far-right extremists. Both acts and threats of violence soared after the 2020 election, and with the Republican presidential candidate openly running on a campaign of “retribution,” one can expect more violence in the year ahead.

For some Americans, the 2024 election has come to represent a “final battle,” as the former president has ominously framed it. When politics devolves into an existential struggle between two warring sides, it is only a matter of time before things become violent — and no democratic system can long withstand the strains of political violence. The great danger in 2024 is not that it will be the “final battle,” however, but the first of many more devastating conflicts to come. The latest confrontation between Republican-led states and the Democratic-led executive branch shows that we have entered a new — though hardly unprecedented — chapter in the country’s history. Three years into his presidency, Joe Biden’s “friends” in the Republican Party are nowhere to be found.>

<[Event "90th US Open"]
[Site "Chicago IL"]
[Date "1989.08.??"]
[EventDate "1989"]
[Round "1"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Bender, Fred"]
[Black "Rizzitano, James A"]
[ECO "C85"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "90th US Open"]
[Site "Chicago IL"]
[Date "1989.08.??"]
[EventDate "1989"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Rizzitano, James A"]
[Black "Du Cret, Rene P"]
[ECO "E99"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.cxd5 Nxd5 5.e4 Nxc3 6.bxc3 c5 7.Nf3 cxd4 8.cxd4 Bb4+ 9.Bd2 Bxd2+ 10.Qxd2 O-O 11.Bc4 Nd7 12.O-O Nf6 13.Rfe1 b6 14.Rad1 Bb7 15.Bd3 Rc8 16.Qf4 Rc3 17.d5 exd5 18.e5 Nh5 19.Qd4 Ra3 20.g4 Qd7 21.Bf5 Qb5 22.gxh5 Rxf3 23.Qg4 d4 24.h6 g6 25.Be4 Bxe4 26.Qxe4 Rf5 27.Qxd4 Qc6 28.f4 Qe6 29.Kh1 Rh5 30.Qe3 Qxa2 31.Re2 Qe6 32.Rd6 Qh3 33.Qxh3 Rxh3 34.Ra2 Rxh6 35.Rxa7 Rb8 36.Rdd7 g5 37.f5 Rf8 0-1>

One last go at posting 'tainted and imaginary games'.

1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.c4 Bg7 4.Nc3 O-O 5.e4 d6 6.Be2 e5 7.O-O Nbd7 8.Qc2 c6 9.Rd1 Qe7 10.d5 c5 11.g3 Kh8 12.Bg5 h6 13.Bd2 Ng8 14.Nh4 Bf6 15.Ng2 h5 16.h4 Bg7 17.a3 Nh6 18.Bd3 Nf6 19.f3 Nh7 20.Qc1 Ng8 21.b4 b6 22.Re1 Qd7 23.Rb1 Ne7 24.Bh6 f5 25.Bxg7+ Kxg7 26.bxc5 bxc5 27.f4 Nf6 28.fxe5 dxe5 29.exf5 Nxf5 30.Bxf5 Qxf5 31.Qg5 Qh3 32.Qxe5 Kg8 33.Qg5 Ng4 34.Qxg6+ Kh8 35.Qxh5+ 1/2-1/2>

S'all about 'puffing up legacies'.

<[Event "90th US Open"]
[Site "Chicago IL"]
[Date "1989.08.??"]
[EventDate "1989"]
[Round "9"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Rizzitano, James A"]
[Black "Salman, Nachum"]
[ECO "B97"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nc3 d6 4.f4 Nf6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 c5 7.Be3 cxd4 8.Nxd4 Nc6 9.Qd2 Bd7 10.0-0 a5 11.Rad1 Nxd4 12.Bxd4 Bc6 13.Bf3 Nd7 14.Bxg7 Kxg7 15.Qd4+ Kg8 16.e5 dxe5 17.fxe5 Qb6 18.Qxb6 Nxb6 19.Nd5 Nxd5 20.Bxd5 Rac8 21.Rd2 Bxd5 22.Rxd5 Rxc2 23.Rxa5 Rxb2 24.Rf2 Rb1+ 25.Rf1 Rxf1+ 26.Kxf1 Rc8 27.Rb5 Rc7 28.a4 Kf8 29.a5 Ke8 30.Rb6 Kd7 31.a6 bxa6 32.e6+ fxe6 33.Rxa6 Rc6 34.Ra3 e5 35.Rh3 Rf6+ 36.Ke2 Rf7 37.Ra3 Ke6 38.Ra4 Kf6 39.h4 e6 40.Ke3 Rd7 41.g3 h5 42.Ra1 Rf7 43.Ke4 Rd7 44.Rf1+ Ke7 45.Kxe5 Rd5+ 46.Ke4 Rf5 47.Ra1 Rb5 48.Ra4 Kf6 49.Rc4 Rb3 50.Kf4 e5+ 51.Ke4 Rxg3 52.Rc6+ Kg7 53.Kxe5 Rg4 54.Rc7+ Kh6 55.Rc6 Rxh4 56.Kf6 Rf4+ 57.Ke5 Rf5+ 58.Ke4 h4 59.Rc1 Rf7 60.Rc5 g5 61.Rc3 Kh5 62.Ra3 Kg4 0-1>

1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.e3 Nc6 4.Nf3 Bb4 5.Qc2 O-O 6.Nd5 Re8 7.a3 Bf8 8.Bd3 g6 9.O-O d6 10.Nxf6+ Qxf6 11.Be4 Qe7 12.b4 f5 13.Bd5+ Kh8 14.Bb2 Bg7 15.d4 e4 16.Nd2 Nxb4 17.axb4 c6 18.Bxe4 fxe4 19.d5 cxd5 20.Bxg7+ Kxg7 21.cxd5 Bf5 22.Rfc1 a6 23.Nc4 Rad8 24.Nb6 Rf8 25.Qc7 Rf7 26.Qxe7 Rxe7 27.Rc4 Rf8 28.Rac1 h5 29.h4 Rff7 30.R4c3 Bg4 31.Nc4 Rf6 32.Nd2 Rff7 33.Rc4 Bf5 34.Rd4 Rf8 35.Rcc4 Rfe8 36.b5 axb5 37.Rb4 Rc8 38.Rxb5 Rc1+ 39.Kh2 Rd1 40.Nc4 Rxd4 41.exd4 e3 42.Nxe3 Bd3 43.Rb6 Ba6 44.Rxd6 Re4 45.g3 Rxd4 46.Kg2 Kf7 47.Rb6 Rd2 48.Rb4 Kf6 49.Kf3 Be2+ 50.Kf4 b5 51.f3 Ra2 52.Rd4 Ra4 53.Nc2 Bc4 54.Ke4 Ra8 55.Ne3 Ba2 56.g4 Re8+ 57.Kf4 hxg4 58.fxg4 Rh8 59.Rb4 Rxh4 60.Rxb5 g5+ 61.Ke4 Rh2 62.Rb6+ Kf7 63.Rb7+ Kf6 64.Rb6+ Kf7 65.Ra6 Re2 66.Kd4 Bb3 67.Ra5 Kf6 68.Rb5 Ba2 69.Rb6+ Kf7 70.Rd6 Bb3 71.Kd3 Re1 72.Rd8 Ke7 73.Rg8 Kf6 74.Rf8+ Kg7 75.Rb8 Ba4 76.Rb4 Be8 77.Nf5+ Kg6 78.Rb6+ Kh7 79.Rh6+ Kg8 80.Re6 Bb5+ 81.Kd4 Rg1 82.Kc5 Bd7 83.Re7 Ba4 84.d6 Kf8 85.Re4 Bd7 86.Re7 Ba4 87.Ra7 Be8 88.Ra8 Rd1 89.Ne3 Rd2 90.Nc4 Rd1 91.Ne5 Rc1+ 92.Kb4 Rb1+ 93.Kc3 Rc1+ 94.Kd2 1-0>

1.e4 g6 2.d4 Bg7 3.Nf3 d6 4.Nc3 Nf6 5.Be3 c6 6.Qd2 Qa5 7.Be2 Nbd7 8.0-0 0-0 9.Bh6 e5 10.dxe5 dxe5 11.Nd5 Qxd2 12.Ne7+ Kh8 13.Bxg7+ Kxg7 14.Nxd2 Nc5 15.Nxc8 Rfxc8 16.f3 Ne6 17.Nc4 Nd4 18.Bd3 Re8 19.c3 Ne6 20.Nxe5 Nc5 21.b4 Rxe5 22.bxc5 Rxc5 23.Rac1 Rd8 24.Rfd1 Ra5 25.Rc2 Re5 26.Rcd2 Re7 27.Bc2 Rxd2 28.Rxd2 Nd7 29.Kf2 Nc5 30.Rd4 h6 31.Rc4 b6 32.Rd4 Rc7 33.Bb3 b5 34.Ke3 a5 35.f4 Nxb3 36.axb3 c5 37.Rd6 c4 38.bxc4 Rxc4 39.Kd3 Ra4 40.Rd5 b4 41.c4 Ra3+ 42.Kd4 a4 43.Ra5 b3 44.Kc3 Ra2 45.Rb5 Rxg2 46.Rb4 Ra2 47.e5 Kf8 48.h4 h5 49.Rb7 Rf2 50.c5 Rc2+ 51.Kb4 b2 52.Kxa4 Rxc5 53.Rxb2 Rc4+ 54.Rb4 Rxb4+ 55.Kxb4 Ke7 56.Kc4 Ke6 57.Kd4 Kf5 58.Ke3 Kg4 59.Ke4 Kg3 60.f5 gxf5+ 61.Kxf5 Kf3 1/2-1/2>

Puff! Puff! Puff! (that legacy)

<[Event "1st Monadnock Marathon"] [Site "Jaffrey, NH"]
[Date "1978.10.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Carter, David"]
[Black "Hayward, Keith"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[ECO "C80"]
[WhiteElo "2088"]
[BlackElo "2106"]