⚰️🪦

 Stick a fork in ‘im, he’s done.

A New York State judge on Tuesday cancelled all of the business licenses for the Trump Organization and its 500 or so subsidiary companies and partnerships after finding that Trump used them to, along with his older two sons, commit fraud. 

Under the New York General Business Law you can only do business in your own name as a sole proprietor or with a business license, which the state calls a “business certificate.” All of Trump’s businesses were corporations or partnerships that require business certificates.

And now I know why the judge fined the lawyers:

In a 35-page decision, Judge Engoron also excoriated Trump and his lawyers for making nonsense arguments, so badly misquoting legal cases that they turned the law upside down, and other legal misconduct. 

Five Trump lawyers were each fined $7,500 for making “frivolous” arguments. 

A judge calling a lawyer’s argument “frivolous” is the equivalent of saying it is no better than nonsense from a drunk in a bar, as I teach my Syracuse University College of Law students. 

Those lawyers may well find it wise to hire their own lawyers as Judge Engoron’s findings could form the basis of disbarment proceedings, something already underway against Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani, the former federal prosecutor, and John Eastman, a former dean of the Chapman University School of Law in Orange, Calif.

ETTD. Everything. Basically, Trump has been forced into Chapter 7:

Barring a highly unlikely reversal by an appeals court, Trump’s business assets eventually will be liquidated since he cannot operate them without a business license. Retired Judge Barbara Jones was appointed to monitor the assets, an arrangement not unlike the court-supervised liquidation of a bankrupt company or the assets of a drug lord. 

Creditors, any fines due the state because of the fraud, and taxes will be paid first from sales of Trump properties. 

The various properties are likely to be sold at fire sale prices and certainly not for top dollar when liquidation begins, probably after all appeals are exhausted.

🎶 Turn out the lights, the party’s over…🎶