“Donald Trump may have authored the Art of the Deal,” said the New York attorney general Letitia James, doing her best resolute voice. “But he perfected the art of the steal.”

There speaks American justice: biased, politicized, odiously trite. “Today, we proved that no one is above the law,” said James, which is what every Trump prosecutor has said, over and over, for years now. “No matter how rich, powerful or politically connected you are, everyone must play by the same rules.”

Despite all the strong words and massive fines, Trump’s candidacy is growing in strength

That’s garbage and everybody knows it. The rules don’t apply to everyone. The rules didn’t apply to the Trump family until Donald Trump became president of the United States and America’s ruling class had a nervous breakdown.

On Friday, after a long investigation and prosecution headed by James, Judge Arthur F. Engoron ruled against the Trumps and the Trump Organization. He imposed fines of $355 million, plus interest, on the former First Family for fraudulently inflating the worth of their assets in order to secure more favorable loan terms.

The largeness of the sum demanded may be shocking, but the judgment is not. In September, before this trial began, Judge Engoron had already ruled that the Trump Organization’s statements “clearly contain fraudulent valuations.”

This is a civil case, which requires a “preponderance of evidence” for the accused to be found liable, rather than a criminal one that demands proof of guilt “beyond reasonable doubt.” Eric and Don Jr. have both been ordered to pay $4 million.

The Trumps will appeal. The case will drag on, possibly until after the election. The media will move on to the criminal “hush-money” indictment.

But Trump will keep saying that “banana republics” behave in this way towards presidential candidates. And he has a point.

He will keep pointing out that the Democrats have weaponized the justice system against him; that James is — like others pursuing him in other states — a flagrantly prejudiced Democrat, elected to her role on a pledge to hound Donald Trump through the courts.

And he has a point. Will every other large New York real estate company now find its businesses records similarly dissected for improprieties? Of course not.

Any reasonable person can see James is driven by a fierce animosity towards the Trumps. She has said that she regards Trump as an “illegitimate president” and appears to believe that her main job is pursuing him and other select targets, not overseeing the application of the law in New York.

Many in the media are already writing up Friday’s verdict as vindication for James after she was mocked and abused by Trump. As a political figure, she seems to enjoy the adulation. She may not feel quite so clever in nine months’ time. Because if Trump does win back the White House, it will be in large part thanks to Letitia James, as arguably Trump’s leading legal antagonist.

It will also be thanks to Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney. In August she was held up as a paragon of justice as she indicted Donald Trump on charges of election “racketeering.” Yet Willis is now accused of living it large at the taxpayer’s expense with her romantic partner Nathan Wade, who just happens to be one of the special prosecutors she hired to go after Trump and his associates.

It’s all very grubby. Americans are increasingly sick of the legal hounding of Trump, on so many fronts. They find the obvious corruption of the judicial process for political ends far more hypocritical and hideous than Trump’s crimes.

Trump fans will obviously cheer on their hero as he rants madly about another “witch-hunt” and insists he did nothing wrong. But they are only ever going to vote one way in November. It is independents, or reluctant Trump voters, who will decide who wins the White House in November. And independent people don’t have to like Trump to see that he is being unfairly treated.

Trump knows this. He can see that his re-election campaign has only blossomed since the criminal indictments and legal verdicts started landing against him. He currently has a significant lead over Biden in presidential election polls. That’s why he is putting his own trials at the heart of his campaign.

Of course, nobody can say for sure how the broader American electorate might react if Trump is convicted of a crime in court and perhaps given a prison sentence. There will be many more twists before the election.

For now, though, despite all the strong words and massive fines, Trump’s candidacy is growing in strength. And Letitia James’s crusade might send Trump to the White House rather than jail.

This article was originally published on The Spectator’s UK website.

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