[ben_w]

What made it a felony under New York law is the claim that the falsified records were intended to conceal another crime, specifically efforts to influence an election.

To a decent approximation, if Trump had not been running for office when he did this, then it wouldn't have been a crime. But then, he wouldn't have cared to cover it up.

Covering up that he got off with a porn star isn't the problem. Like Bill Clinton, it's the actual particulars of the coverup rather than generically that there was a desire to cover up an extramarital affair itself that's the problem.

[terminalshort]

Technically opening up your neighbor's mailbox is a felony. But in practice you will never be charged for it. Same thing with the hush money case. There is no law that makes covering up an affair illegal while running for office and Trump was not charged with any campaign finance violations. He was charged with the vague crime of "falsifying business records" which, while technically illegal in all cases, in practice is only ever charged if there is a victim who has been defrauded by the falsification. In this case there was none.

The Clinton case is exactly the same concept and is also 100% a politically motivated prosecution. So is the Hunter Biden gun charge. Nobody else ever would have been charged for that.

[lovich]

Yea, I read through the court cases. He got 3rd party valuations on property and just decided to change it on his whim to get a better deal on loans.

I understand that the rich are usually not prosecuted for this fact but if one of us plebs did that and the banks found out, they’d be all over us for fraud.

[terminalshort]

No, they really wouldn't. People do this all the time. Take the example of the (politically motivated) charges against Leticia James for mortgage fraud. Everybody lies about the house being their primary residence to get a better interest rate and nobody who doesn't piss off politically powerful people are ever charged for it. Fraud is essentially never charged if the loan is paid back.

[ben_w]

From what I've heard, "primary residence" is a different issue, something along the line of US banks asking this at time of issue and never checking about updates.

Saying the property is worth more or less than it is… I don't know how this would even happen. The countries in which I've looked at mortgages, the banks don't give an option for a self-assessment. Is the US not like that? Or is it specifically a thing for getting a loan secured on a property that you already own rather than a new purchase?

[terminalshort]

The point is that in both cases it was a lie on a loan document, which is fraud. Donald Trump's loan was not a simple residential mortgage so the same underwriting process does not apply.

[lovich]

He got materially better rates than he would have based on lower valuations.

Banks have never given me or the other plebs the grace of fucking the risk profile of their investments to our own benefit when it’s found out.

You’re conflating the fact that it’s usually not worth the cost of investigation and enforcement in the event that the loans are paid back, with the idea that it’s not enforced in general

[terminalshort]

If the bank is stupid enough to give a loan on Donald Trump's own valuations rather than insisting on seeing the third party valuations then they have some employees that need to be fired. The criminal justice system just doesn't get involved in these matters where there are no civil damages, whether you like it or not.

[lovich]

It wasn’t above board.

It was fraud.

The bank was unaware he had changed the valuation.

Also wasn’t it just for the fraud, it was because this fraud was connected to his attempts to manipulate the election.

If we are going to go further in this conversation I need to know if you can point to an action he has taken that you think is bad, other than appointing someone he turned on later.