Northwestern Law Professor Calls the $350M Judgment Against Trump the Most ‘Unjust’ Act in US Politics Since Burr Killed Hamilton

New York judge orders Donald Trump to pay $355 million penalty in civil tax fraud case trial ruling. (AP Photo)

Legal scholar Steven Calabresi declared in a Monday op-ed that the $350-plus million ruling against Donald Trump last week is rivaled in American politics only by the 1804 shooting and killing of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton by then-Vice President Arron Burr.

“The civil fraud judgment against Donald Trump is a travesty and an unjust political act rivaled only in American politics by the killing of former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton by Vice President Aaron Burr,” Steven Calabresi wrote for Reason’s Volokh Conspiracy.

In July 1804, then-Vice President Burr shot and killed Hamilton, the former Treasury Secretary, in a duel in New Jersey after a long and bitter political feud between the two. Burr would face murder charges over his actions, but those would never actually reach trial.

In the op-ed, the Northwestern Law School professor and Federalist Society co-chairman, called on the Supreme Court to intervene over the “grossly excessive fine” and “Kafkaesque civil trial.”

Judge Arthur Engoron ordered on Friday that Trump pay more than $350 million and be barred from doing business in New York for three years over fraud charges. The former president was accused of inflating the value of properties to obtain more favorable loans.

Calabresi argued Trump is guilty of, at most, tax fraud.

“The New York State laws used to go after Trump have NEVER been used in this way, historically, and while Trump may owe some back state taxes, if Judge Engoron is right, not a single bank claimed that it had been defrauded by Trump in the loans it had made to him,” he wrote. “This is truly a victimless crime.”