Trump while attending a trial session last October (Reuters)

An article in the New York Times criticized the decision of the New York Court of Appeals, on Monday, to reduce the fine imposed on former US President Donald Trump in a commercial fraud case, saying that no one is above the law in the United States except Trump.

Writer Jamil Bui was commenting in his column in the newspaper on the Court of Appeals decision, which reduced the fine against Trump from $454 million to only $175 million, and gave him 10 days to pay the amount.

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Last month, a New York state court decided that Trump was legally responsible for inflating his net worth and misleading banks and insurance companies in order to obtain soft loans for his various businesses and commercial institutions. The state prosecutor gave him 30 days to post bail while he sought to appeal the ruling.

According to the New York Times article, Trump, as of Sunday, did not have sufficient funds to pay the fine, and he was unable to find a company that would pledge to pay nearly half a billion dollars on his behalf.

Discriminatory treatment

Boye said another defendant would have faced the consequences of his inability to secure the fine amount before the court.

He gave an example of this in a criminal case in which the defendant, whose name was Calif Browder, was no more than 16 years old at the time when he was arrested on charges of alleged theft, and was placed in the main prison of New York City on nearby Rikers Island, where he spent 3 years without trial after His family was unable to afford $3,000 bail.

However, this was not the case for Trump on Monday, the date set for paying the fine, as the Court of Appeal said that it would accept a much smaller bail of $175 million, which the author of the article considered a major and unexpected victory for the former president.

Although Trump has the right to appeal the decision, which is what he is actually seeking, what is angering - in Bowie’s opinion - is that he received “unjustified favor” after years of deliberate deception and deception of the American people, according to the article.

The writer considered that this treatment is an example of Trump’s relationship with various American institutions, as it seemed that there was a package of laws specific to Trump that always included a justification that allowed him to look in another direction or provide him with a second chance, “and this is what is happening in the case of the matter.”

He has been escaping punishment for decades

According to the article, throughout his career as a real estate mogul and well-known businessman, Trump has never faced meaningful consequences for his fraudulent, even criminal, behavior. For decades, he has escaped punishment thanks to “his brazenness, his fame, and his cowardly willingness to intimidate his critics by suing them, or even just... Threatening them with that."

Bowie criticized the Republican Party's always standing by its expected candidate in the upcoming presidential elections, in all events, no matter how contrary to the prevailing rules and regulations.

The bottom line is that the extent to which Trump can be held accountable for the consequences of his actions depends on the outcome of the presidential elections next November. If he wins, he will use his powers to pardon himself and escape legal scrutiny, at least in federal court, but if he loses - and the conversation is still up to the author of the article - perhaps luck will finally abandon him.

Source: New York Times