Mr. Trump's current legal "issue," brought on by the New York state attorney general, concerning the values he placed on various properties, is way beyond absurd.  First off, there's no injured party — he satisfied all of the debts.  But even if he defaulted on one or more of the loans in question, he did nothing actionable, other than expose his assets to foreclosure. 

Lenders never take a borrower's word for the value of a property being used to collateralize a loan.  They have their own licensed appraisers to evaluate the asset — and they also check the title records to confirm the borrower's ownership and the possible pre-existence of any other liens against the title, which would have to be paid off in escrow to allow the new lender to be in first position.

I had the occasion to sell a house to a real estate attorney.  She was, however, a first-time buyer and a specialist in land use and planning, not title and escrow procedures.  When we got the preliminary title report from the escrow, she became quite upset.  "There are liens on the title.  I can't buy this house!"  I then told her that her lender will not fund her mortgage loan unless and until the liens were to be settled in the escrow.  The money for that will come from the seller's proceeds, not from her.  This was a routine procedure.  She looked me in the eye and said, "I'm going to have to trust you, Mark."

Trump's situation is particularly scary, not because of the damage being done to his reputation, but as an example of how evil our government of today can be when it wants to destroy someone for political purposes.  What is also disheartening is that Trump's New York enemies felt confident that the pervasive ignorance of the media and general public concerning these matters would allow them to freely pursue this endeavor in spite of how little, if any, substance was behind the charge.  If boasting about one's wealth were a crime, we'd need to build a lot more prisons.

Why is this happening?  Short answer: Trump scares the living (expletive) out of the corrupt hacks clinging to the walls of our political establishment.  They are so afraid of losing their ability to feather their nests at taxpayer expense that they'll even stoop to using silly gimmicks to hamstring outsiders who threaten the status quo.  Add to this the radical shift to the left of today's Democrat party.  Trump scares these leftist folks for additional reasons.  He began to demonstrate that government involvement in economic activities makes us less prosperous.  This is particularly true for working-class people of all ethnic persuasions.  The ongoing damage to their dogma cannot be allowed to continue — at any cost.

We are not anywhere near seeing an end to this low-grade political theater.  Should Trump be re-elected and have a cooperative Congress behind him, progress will be made.  But the entrenchment of the enemies of freedom and prosperity is a metastatic condition, infecting the entire system.  I would not be at all surprised that, should Trump prevail in this current legal action, he would subsequently face new criminal charges for hitting Suzie Goldstein with a spitball in the third grade — for which there is no statute of limitations.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.