It was always a fraud case with no victims. No one lost money. No bank cried foul. No insurance company claimed they’d been swindled. Yet, for the last year, New York Attorney General Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron have tried to convince the world that Donald J. Trump—the most scrutinized businessman in America—was some kind of cartoon con man who needed to be fined half a billion dollars and run out of his home state.
On Thursday, the façade finally cracked. A five-judge panel of the New York Appellate Division’s First Department tossed out the more than $500 million penalty Engoron had imposed, humiliating James and stripping her of the political trophy she thought she could parade into 2024. It wasn’t just a legal victory for President Trump. It was a moral vindication and a long-overdue reminder that even in deep-blue New York, the Constitution still matters.
The Wall Street Journal reports the ruling was “sharply splintered,” but the result speaks louder than the hair-splitting: Engoron’s fantasy judgment was vacated. The panel, made up of judges who are not exactly card-carrying Republicans, understood the absurdity of a fine larger than many Fortune 500 companies’ annual profits, levied in a case where not a single financial institution claimed to be harmed.
Conservative legal scholar Hugh Hewitt said it plainly: the ruling is massive because it explicitly invoked the Eighth Amendment. That’s the amendment that prohibits excessive fines. Excessive is an understatement here. A $550 million penalty—with interest and penalties stacked on top of bond payments—was the definition of weaponized lawfare. Hewitt went further, calling Judge Engoron “a Looney Tunes character,” and he’s not wrong. Engoron became a walking punchline in the courtroom, so determined to crush Trump that even his colleagues in the judiciary couldn’t stomach the spectacle. (And Hewitt’s not the only one. Over the last few years I’ve personally asked and interviewed lawyers left, right and center, and all of them believed Engoron was wildly out of control.)
Let’s not kid ourselves—this was never about fraud. It was about politics. Letitia James campaigned on “getting Trump.” She didn’t run on cleaning up Albany corruption or making New York a safer place to live. She ran on a vendetta. She promised to use her office to pursue one man and one man only, because her party feared he was the one obstacle to their hold on power.
And Judge Engoron? He was her willing executioner. With a smirk and a sneer, he parroted her talking points and cobbled together a ruling so sloppy that the appellate court had no choice but to clean it up. Trump’s description was accurate: Engoron is “one of the most overturned judges in history.”
This is why Trump’s statement on Truth Social resonated: “TOTAL VICTORY in the FAKE New York State Attorney General Letitia James Case! … This was a Case of Election Interference by the City and State trying to show, illegally, that I did things that were wrong when, in fact, everything I did was absolutely CORRECT and, even, PERFECT.”
Election interference—that’s the phrase. Because at the heart of this case, and every other lawfare scheme Trump faces, is the same rotten strategy: tie him up in courts, drain him financially, and hope the American people start to believe the noise.
This ruling doesn’t just expose the weakness of James’s case—it exposes the brokenness of New York’s judicial system. Even liberal judges couldn’t stomach Engoron’s kangaroo-court antics. Even Democratic jurists couldn’t rubber-stamp a half-billion-dollar shakedown with no victims. That’s how badly this case stank.
Hewitt is right: Trump should go on offense. A Section 1983 civil rights action against James and Engoron isn’t just justified—it’s necessary. The people of New York deserve to know whether their legal system is being abused for political warfare. Businesses deserve to know whether they can invest in New York without being targeted by ambitious politicians. And voters deserve to know whether partisan AGs can openly campaign on persecuting their enemies without consequence.
Make no mistake—this victory is the first crack in the wall. James thought she had a career-defining scalp. Instead, she’s left with a red face and a ruling that makes her look reckless. The message to every other Democrat attorney general, prosecutor, and judge who thinks “getting Trump” is a career path is simple: the Constitution still applies, and you can’t bend it beyond recognition without eventually paying the price.
But it’s also a warning to Americans: if this can happen to a billionaire with world-class lawyers, what happens to the average citizen who finds themselves in Letitia James’s crosshairs? What happens to the small business owner, the church, the family who doesn’t have the resources to fight back? Lawfare doesn’t just target Trump—it erodes liberty for everyone.
Donald Trump called it “TOTAL VICTORY.” He’s right. Every dollar of Engoron’s obscene judgment was thrown out. Every penalty was vacated. And more importantly, Trump emerges stronger—politically and personally. This is not just about real estate loans. It’s about proving that the American people can see through the scam.
The irony, of course, is that James and Engoron wanted to cripple Trump financially to keep him out of the 2024 race. Instead, they handed him a headline: Trump Beats Back Half-Billion Dollar Witch Hunt. That headline will rally his supporters, remind independents of the weaponization of government, and further cement his reputation as the man the Left fears most.
This case was supposed to be the crown jewel of “get Trump” lawfare. Now it’s rubble. And as Trump himself said, “This is the first of many wins.” The Left better believe him. Because if the rotten core of New York lawfare just cracked, the whole rotten system may be about to collapse.