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Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom.
Today is Thursday, April 7th, 2022. It's about 425 in the afternoon.
There's some breaking news, some significant news involving former President Donald Trump.
Before I get to it, I'd like to remind you to like and subscribe.
If you like what we do to like and subscribe. If you
like what we do, like and subscribe and get your friends to do the same. The broader our audience,
the more we can move that needle. And the other reminder is this Tuesday, April 12 at 1245 in the
afternoon, Ron Paul himself will be here on Judging Freedom. Tuesday, April 12, 1245 in the afternoon,
Ron Paul on Judging Freedom. All right, so earlier today, just a few hours ago, actually,
Letitia James, who's the Attorney General of the State of New York, who is suing civilly,
not prosecuting criminally, suing civilly, President Trump, his adult children,
and his various corporations, including his principal holding company, the Trump Organization,
filed a motion in New York State Supreme Court asking a judge to hold former President Donald
Trump personally in contempt. What's all that about? This is again, it's not a criminal prosecution.
It's a civil investigation. The investigation is to determine whether or not the Trump organization
at the direction of Donald Trump himself at some time in the past seven years engaged in fraud by lying to taxing authorities about the value
of assets owned wholly or in part by the Trump Organization, by lying to insurance companies
about the value of those assets, and by lying to banks. If that's true, it is at least civil fraud and it may be
criminal fraud, but this is a civil case. Former President Trump has not been indicted and he has
not been charged with any crime. In the course of that investigation, when Letitia James served a
subpoena on the Trump Organization, former President Trump moved to dismiss her investigation
and to quash the subpoena. Both motions were denied. The court found as a matter of law that
the Attorney General of the State of New York does have the authority to investigate these
defendants for these allegations and that the subpoena was valid. Trump then asked for more
time to comply with the subpoena.
The court said, will you comply with it? He said, through his attorneys, yes. So then the court
signed an order ordering former President Trump personally to comply with the subpoena by March 31st of this year. That's last week. Instead of complying, he objected
to what the subpoena sought. Well, it's too little too late. He already made the objection
and he lost. So that's the basis for the contempt citation. Now, this is civil contempt.
This is not Steve Bannon being indicted for criminal contempt by refusing to comply with a subpoena from the
January 6th committee. This is what's called civil contempt. Civil contempt is the remedy
in a civil case, not a criminal case, when a person has been ordered to do something by a
court of competent jurisdiction and doesn't do it. What do the courts do? Well, they usually fine you
until you agree to do it. Alex Jones recently did not show up for a deposition and the court fined
him $25,000 a day until he showed up. He showed up on day four with a check for $75,000 for days one,
two, and three that he didn't show. That's what will be sought here.
However, the fine has to be commensurate to the wealth of the defendant. Here we go again.
What is Donald Trump worth? Presumably a $10,000 a day fine would be peanuts for him.
So we may get into that. Who knows? But right now, and the Trump people haven't responded to it,
but there's not much they can do under the law other than cough up the documents that
have already been ordered. The reason he has to do that is because the court has already ruled
that the Attorney General is entitled to those documents. So his objections are not only too
little too late, he's already made them and he
already lost the argument on them. What will the contempt consist of? It rarely, rarely consists
of jail, but it often consists, as in the Alex Jones case that I just described, it often consists
in some coercive fine, not a punitive fine, a coercive fine. The purpose of
the fine is to coerce the defendant into complying. And frequently, the amount of the fine continues
to go up the longer the person stays in contempt. And I dealt with this when I was on the bench.
It's an ugly side of the judicial system. We have to force somebody to do something that
they don't want to do, but you've already ruled on it. I think a judge will do the right thing.
He's already ruled on it. He's not going to go back on his own ruling. He's going to say to the
Trump people, okay, start complying tomorrow. And if you don't, it's X dollars a day. And that
number will double until you do comply.
That's standard operating procedure.
We'll see where it goes.
As a footnote to this, and unconnected with it, except that it also involves Donald Trump,
the Manhattan District Attorney who does not work for the Attorney General, Letitia James,
but who's popularly elected, so he really has no boss.
He works for the people.
The Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg today announced that the criminal investigation
of former President Trump continues to proceed and that he is personally involved with it.
I don't know why he made the announcement, except that his two chief prosecutors in the case resigned last month.
And at the time of their resignation, they sent a letter to Mr. Bragg outlining all the crimes
that they believe Donald Trump personally committed and all the evidence they amassed
to support the allegations of his criminal behavior. And of course, that letter made its way to the New York Times,
and those of us who follow these things got to see it.
But for some reason, District Attorney Bragg felt the need to say today,
having nothing to do with this contempt application filed by the Attorney General of the State of New York,
that the criminal investigation
of Donald Trump continues. Wow, he has a lot on his plate. Hire good lawyers and pay them.
Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. Thank you.