Donald Trump will go down in history as a master con man, but do his victims care?
In the 1970s, I spent almost seven years as head of a Denver and multi-five county District Attorney's investigative unit into white-collar crime. Near the end of that period, I helped enforce the new Colorado Consumer protection act with civil authority. If anything, my antennae go into overdrive when I smell con artists, Donald Trump fit the profile of con artists I have known.. Puffery, exaggerations, lying, and hyper-pressure sales technique are some of the marks of confidence fraudsters and con artists. They depend on "a sucker is born every minute" to succeed. The January 6 committee this past week shined a light on a potential criminal charge against Trump for knowingly lying about whether the 2020 election was stolen, alleging he used money he raised by promoting the lie (2020 election was stolen by fraud) after he was told it was a lie. His sales pitch was money raised would go to carry on the fight in court. The money was to go into a fund, which appeared to be non-existent Per the hearings, the fraudster involved was Trump himself, not his political opponents. Instead of his sales pitch, the $250 million raised paid for his own property's usage benefitted political loyalists post administration employment in a political action organization and an elected official's nonprofit. Those defrauded have not yet complained. Do they care? Perhaps they are willfully blind, have not been following the hearings, or they are OK with what he did with the money even if t was not in the way it was promised because it was still used for 'the cause" of his continued political influence. Victims of fraud, I have found, are often afraid to admit to themselves or to others they were conned, either because they are embarrassed or are in denial. Sometimes they will try to justify their foolish actions and even support the perp. Nonetheless, there is value in prosecution or lawsuits, either as a deterrent and warning to others or to get restitution even for those who do not know they were ripped off. The purpose of criminal prosecution, theft by deception, is to punish and deter further action or others contemplating doing it.. Civil litigation can result in victims getting some money back. It will be interesting if some state attorney general or DA files criminal charges or files a lawsuit per enforcement of state laws. Trump has a history of being sued or prosecuted for similar fraudulent practices, such as in Trump University and his charitable foundation, resulting in penalties and millions in refunds to his victims. It has not deterred him so far, but the saga is not over.
Proof of intentional deception is the element we needed to file criminal charges. We looked for volume and patterns of criminal or civil fraudulent behavior in the complaints we received. The criminal statute we were authorized to investigate and to enforce as "theft by deception". Not all con artists get caught, sued, or go to jail, by a long shot. Donald Trump did get caught in his Trump University for operating a fraud, and his family's charitable foundation resulted in his family being forbidden to participate again in such a "charitable" foundation, money used to benefit himself.. . His tax and evaluation of the worth of his properties are under investigation even now. The Consumer Protection Act in various states gives state Attorneys General civil authority to recover missed money for consumers, and the element of proving criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt is not required. The burden of these civil powers is not so hard to prove, just needing the "preponderance of evidence", meaning the balance of evidence is sufficient, not requiring proof beyond a reasonable doubt to get a criminal conviction.. . The other issue is the use of "fraud by wire," which may be involved in fueling criminal charges. It is not unlike the use of mail to commit a fraud under which the post office can trigger criminal prosecution. The other issue in a criminal prosecution that the Department of Justice must consider is should they be in the business of criminally prosecuting a former president. It sets a dangerous precedence for the next regime to do until their political enemies who served before them. For that reason, the civil approach to recover money on behalf of victims makes more sense to avoid that dilemma. One thing is clear, Trump has a history of being a successful con artist until he got caught, losing legal action that cost him millions, in or out of elected office, yet he was never deterred from doing something similar again and again.
The Jan. 6 panel says the Trump campaign misled donors using election lies : NPR
Donald Trump investigation reveals new details of alleged fraud - BBC News
In 2016, he was already a con man A link to my blog posting calling Trump a con man in 2016
Felicia Muftic is the author of The Colorado Consumer Handbook, 1982, available in the Library of Congress
and in the Denver Public Library Call Number: C640.730978 M891co....It is long out of print.
