In classic Donald Trump fashion, it has been determined that the real estate mogul-turned-president has been overvaluing his properties for years. This has serious legal and economic implications for the former president, whose entire public persona rests on him being the crazy rich guy who’ll say and do anything.
Well, after a New York Supreme Court ruling was handed down that effectively found Trump had been overvaluing his property by hundreds of millions of dollars for years, that narrative is being forcibly changed.
Donald Trump, for his part, insists that the ruling is totally fake and politically motivated. The latter part is likely true. But the former part, unfortunately for Trump, is very real. And completely predictable, considering how sloppily his attacks against the Administrative State and their powerful allies have been these past years.
And how utterly ineffective at accomplishing his stated goal of “draining the swamp” Trump has been since he was first sworn in as president. It’s like pulling your pants down in the middle of a firefight and being upset that your rear-end was shot.
Anyway, what Trump did is technically fraud.
Why It’s Fraudulent to Lie About the Value of Your Assets
Therefore, his businesses in New York are losing their state certifications—meaning that the Trump Organization is no longer allowed to own property in New York (unless Trump can successfully appeal the New York Supreme Court’s ruling).
Key properties belonging to a multitude of Trump Organization limited liability corporations (LLC) are now at-risk of falling under the receivership of New York state (as early as the next ten days).
In essence, Trump will no longer own these properties.
Once in the possession of the state, those properties can be resold—without the proceeds ever being shared with the former president—to whomever the state wants.
The reason that Trump inflated his net worth and the value of his properties has to do with Trump’s iconic role as being the self-described “king of debt.” Trump’s wealth, like so much wealth today, is built upon a pile of debt. The greater the valuation of his assets, the higher his net worth is, he can leverage those things to get more money from investors, banks, and the like.
That’s the reason why Trump was overvaluing his assets and his net worth so much—and why a clearly partisan New York Supreme Court could find Trump guilty of fraud, thereby allowing for the court to effectively take his businesses away.
Of course, anyone who has ever operated businesses in major metropolises in the United States or is aware of what it takes to operate at the level that Trump had operated at within New York City, understands fully that this sort of fraudulent activity occurs all the time.
And it isn’t just Trump’s egotistical inflating of his own net worth.
They’re All Doing It
Everything that Trump did to gain money and power is what anyone else in that industry and in a city like New York does to rise to the top of the field.
They pay off politicians via campaign donations. They fund philanthropic endeavors in the city or state that allows for the Democratic Party graft machine to absorb some of the money. They conduct massive fundraisers for the party itself—all to curry favor with the ruling elite (in this case, the New York Democrats).
Once wealthy, these rich people must stay wealthy.
That’s usually not done by creating some new business. It’s by leveraging their existing assets to get greater loans and investments. The higher the value of your properties and your net worth, the more money you can raise. Trump is not the first to do this. Trump just might have been the most excessive of all the country’s elite—which isn’t surprising, given Trump’s personality and history of excess.
How much of what Donald Trump has done others have also done, except they’re not being made to account for it because they’re remained in line with the preferences of the elite? It’s not right what Trump did.
He clearly engaged in fraudulent behavior.
But he’s being singled out because of whatever political agenda his presidential campaign has run afoul of, not because those prosecuting him are interested in upholding the law. If they truly were, the Biden Family would have been indicted long ago. The Clintons, too, for that matter. Funny how it’s only ever Trump.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor and an energy security analyst at The-Pipeline, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert occasionally serves as a Subject Matter Expert for various organizations, including the Department of Defense. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon. He writes opinion articles from a conservative perspective.
