Engoron conceded that Trump repaid all his loans in full and on time. There was no one to play the role of victim, no one to testify that Trump cheated him out of anything. The banks didn’t lose money but made money — the precise amounts specified in the loan contracts. But the judge still found misconduct. “It is undisputed that defendants have made all required payments on time,” he wrote. But “timely and total repayment of loans does not extinguish the harm that false statements inflict on the marketplace.”

 

Engoron vowed that by penalizing Trump, “the Court intends to protect the integrity of the financial marketplace and, thus, the public as a whole.” But Engoron did not find that the “public as a whole” had been harmed, either. His decision quoted extensively from a 2014 case that supported the use of “disgorgement,” that is, the government’s taking of millions from a defendant, as an “equitable remedy, notwithstanding the absence of loss to individuals or independent claims for restitution.” The 2014 case said that “the remedy of disgorgement does not require a showing or allegation of direct losses to consumers or the public.” In the Trump matter, no individual lost any money from the loans, and the “public” as a whole did not lose any money from them, either.