A lawyer on another website, when asked about what arguments he would make to get it into Federal court, had this to say:
Eighth Amendment excessive fines clause.Numerous Fourteenth Amendment Due Process issues and the obvious Equal Protection selective prosecution issue.
The easiest and most obvious due process issue is a Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co.-type argument applied to Letitia James, who literally promised to harass Trump endlessly in an effort to get votes in her election.
Interesting, hadn’t thought about excessive fines since this isn’t a criminal case. I’m not up enough on this topic, do you know if the 8th Amendment has ever been applied to a civil case?
Of course, that is conceding that there should be a fine in the first place, only arguing that it is excessive.
Just looked up Capterton real quick, not familiar with that case, but it seems to me to be about recusal. Even if it were to apply to an AG, it doesn’t seem to vindicate Trump per se, just that James couldn’t be the prosecutor (much like down in Georgia right now).
The 8th amendment ban on excessive fines has been incorporated against the states. A $300 million dollar fine when there is no victim is unconstitutional.
President Trump shouldn't even be forced to liquidate assets to post a bond. He should go straight to SCOTUS for relief.
-PJ