Hugh Hewitt, who besides being a professionally ineffectual “Conservative” columnist is also a law professor, has come up a very effective piece about the James/Engeron/Trump legal atrocity:

Morning Glory: Due process for you but not for Trump? The New York civil fraud case and judgment stink. Will an appeals court stop this charade?, Fox News.com, March 21, 2004.

It does not seem possible that there is no legal recourse for former President Trump to challenge the requirement that he either pay the $464 million fine… or post an apparently impossible-to-obtain bond to satisfy a civil fraud judgment pending appeal. 

Hewitt is bemused, saying the case:

…ought to be titled Engoron and James v. Trump. It is a joke of a ”case” but no serious person should be laughing.

I represented landowners and developers for decades before retiring a half dozen years ago from active practice. In 30 years of doing so on behalf of some of the country’s largest developers, I never encountered or even heard of such a case.

adding

the absurd judgment amount and the onerous payment terms pre-appeals … strike me as crying out for some court in New York that values that state’s reputation … to step forward…

to prevent Trump’s financial strangulation until after the litigation is fully appealed.

We at VDARE.com have now a great deal of experience with New York Courts and Law Officers (amongst others). We can attest to Hugh Hewitt we have seen no evidence that the New York Bench has any other than bigoted Leftists, and that the State prefers financial strangulation to giving their victims a day in Court.

Personally, I think Trump’s only chance is SCOTUS, if there. At least he has some hope they will deign to take the case.

Not surprisingly given his Real Estate experience, Hewitt sees that cash pressure may lead to fire sale losses for Trump: He quotes Chief Justice John Roberts in a case last year:

The principle that a government may not take more from a taxpayer than she owes can trace its origins at least as far back as Runnymede in 1215, where King John swore in the Magna Carta that when his sheriff or bailiff came to collect any debts owed him from a dead man, they could re-move property ‘until the debt which is evident shall be fully paid to us; and the residue shall be left to the executors to fulfil the will of the deceased.’”

Forcing fire sales of illiquid assets is of course effectively taking more than what is owed. He adds, interestingly:  

 I cannot find anyone who will write persuasively in defense of this unprecedented verdict and onerous procedure.

Hewitt’s essay seethes with obviously sincere outrage and not a little fear. It deserves reading in full.

The fact that such a careful Normie feels like this, and also feels writing like this will be tolerated by his outlets, gives hope that the People’s Republic of New York (PRONY) may be overreaching at last.