Tomorrow, Saturday, Mark will be back for his weekend music show Mark Steyn on the Town. It airs at 5pm British Summer Time - which is 6pm in Western Europe and 12 noon North American Eastern. You can listen from almost anywhere on the planet by clicking the button at top right here.
Breaking news from the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division, First Judicial Department:
Trump's massive $500M civil fraud fine in AG Tish James' case thrown out by NY appeals court
Or more succinctly:
Hey @NewYorkStateAG, fixed it for you pic.twitter.com/SHstH2j10O
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) August 21, 2025
It comes to something when five justices who disagree with each other on basically every other element of the case of Letitia James vs Donald Trump - can agree on one thing:
the court's disgorgement order, which directs that defendants pay nearly half a billion dollars to the State of New York, is an excessive fine that violates the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Huh. Where have we heard this unconstitutional bit before? Oh, yes, Mark last summer:
Comedy-Gold Headline of the Day from former Reagan/Bush Justice Department official Steven Calabresi over at Reason:
President Donald Trump's Manhattan Convictions are Unconstitutional
Yeah, well, that and $7.95 will get you a decaf macchiato. I know more about this constitution of yours than I ever wanted to. For example, in February a DC jury told me I owed climate mullah Michael E Mann a solitary dollar in actual damages, and then added on another million bucks in "punitive damages".
That's also "unconstitutional". In BMW of North America vs Gore, the US Supreme Court threw out a five-hundred-to-one actual-to-punitive damages ratio because it's so disproportionate that it "violates due process". A few years later, in State Farm vs Campbell, their Lordships fine-tuned their thinking and decided that "due process" required an actual/punitive ratio of no more than single digits. So three-to-one, four-to-one ...or maybe, if it's especially egregious, nine-to-one.
The ratio my jury settled on is "unconstitutional" but an American record: a million to one.
So Judge Irving could have said thirty seconds after the verdict, "Sorry, chaps. Not your fault - perhaps I should have mentioned this in the juror instructions - but that million dollars is going to have to be lowered to nine bucks, tops."
Instead, as is the American way, I'll have to spend three million getting it to the Supreme Court in order to have the lousy mil struck down.
[UPDATE: though Mark's case is still headed to the United States Supreme Court, the one-million-dollar jury award against him was reduced by Judge Irving to a mere $5,000 earlier this year - on the same constitutional basis as in President Trump's case. And, now in a stunning role reversal, it is Mann that now owes one million dollars.
As Mark has said, "I'm currently living the dimestore version of Trump's travails."]
Mark continues:
Increasingly in US life, whether or not something is "unconstitutional" has no real-world meaning. "How many divisions has the Constitution?" as Stalin might have said.
The point is not that the Trump verdict is "unconstitutional" but that there is no equality before the law in this grotesque pseudo-republic.
Indeed. In Mark's case, it is not surprising that your average DC juror would be largely uniformed about such things. But, what's the judge's excuse?
🔥🔥🔥from Justice Gorsuch pic.twitter.com/sm3BNTvXrR
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) August 21, 2025
Everyone knew the order would not hold-up under appeal - but as Mark observed:
The Catch 22 is that, in order to appeal the confiscation of half-a-billion dollars, you have to put up a bond for half-a-billion dollars. Why is that? Well, it's to discourage frivolous appeals. As usual, American "justice" provides all the wrong incentives.... the real problem is frivolous judgments.
Law professor and commentator Jonathan Turley:
...Notably, both AG Letitia James and Judge Arthur Engoron did their level best to effectively block an appeal by demanding a ridiculous bond. https://t.co/OT6qYwXk8t
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) August 21, 2025
Even the "reduced bond" was ridiculous:
Trump was forced to pay over $110,000 per day in interest on that unlawful bond.
Crooked Letitia James & Engoron should both be disbarred and removed from office for malicious prosecution and abusive process.
It appears @POTUS has a right to file a civil rights claim under 42... https://t.co/psKiPCsTDW
— Rep. Claudia Tenney (@RepTenney) August 21, 2025
Unfortunately, this doesn't mean this particular lawfare is over. Not by a long shot. There are three different opinions from the five justices. That means, other key elements of the case have been pushed on to the next court to resolve. And, of course, Letitia vows to appeal.
Four of the justices (coincidentally, two of whom sat on Mark's successful case several years ago...) are totally on board with Letitia James bringing the case. However,
Justice Higgitt, while agreeing that the Attorney General had the power to bring this lawsuit, finds that errors made by Supreme Court require a new trial limited to only some of the transactions in question.
Only one actually gets it:
I am troubled that my colleagues are affirming Supreme Court's liability finding, notwithstanding that three out of the five members of this panel clearly believe that the judgment should be vacated, as the Attorney General has not yet proven her case. Nonetheless, what emerges from this Court's vacating the $500 million disgorgement award, with which I concur, is the frustration of what appears to me to have been the Attorney General's true aim in bringing this action. Plainly, her ultimate goal was not "market hygiene," as posited by Justice Moulton, but political hygiene, ending with the derailment of President Trump's political career and the destruction of his real estate business. The voters have obviously rendered a verdict on his political career. This bench today unanimously derails the effort to destroy his business. For all of the foregoing reasons, I would reverse the judgment and dismiss the complaint. Accordingly, while I join in vacating the disgorgement award and the imposition of sanctions on defense counsel, I respectfully dissent to the extent the decretal affirms the judgment.
Meanwhile, turnabout is fair play:
The Eagle Has Landed: @EagleEdMartin checks out @TishJames 'mortgage fraud' property in Brooklyn after being appointed DOJ Special Attorney https://t.co/Yq8I1VJz94
— Miranda Devine (@mirandadevine) August 15, 2025
A note from Mark: The most important, critical element of The Mark Steyn Club is its members - and I'm very touched by all those who signed up in our first month and who are still with us in our ninth year. It means an awful lot to me to know you value what we do here, whether Deep State machinations, transient politics, big-picture civilisational collapse, audio fiction, video poetry, or live music.
If you've become a bit jaded by all that and want something new for Year Nine, well, I hope to see many of you on our sixth annual Mark Steyn Club Cruise from Quebec City to New York. For more information on the Steyn Club, see here - and don't forget our limited-time Gift Membership.
