To the Editor:
Re “Trump Must Pay $355 Million Fine in New York Case” (front page, Feb. 17):
It is clear that Donald Trump is an inveterate scofflaw and will continue to be; he shows no evidence of remorse. As he has told us in many ways, he will continue this behavior regardless of whether he returns to political power.
But too many people are on to his behavior; he will spend the rest of his life being brought to justice for his continuing peccadilloes. He would be wise to take his diminishing bag of marbles and retire to his Florida kingdomlet while he can still enjoy being a little king, clothed or not.
Frederick Nicholas Naftolin
Woodbridge, Conn.
To the Editor:
The massive fines and legal expenses incurred by Donald Trump may be designed to change his behavior, but they won’t. He likely views them as fund-raising opportunities. A donation of only $15 from half of the 74 million people who voted for him in 2020 would bail him out and enable even more fraud and defamation.
If you’re considering a donation to the Republican National Committee or Mr. Trump, please save your money. To use a favorite Republican mantra, it’s time to “starve the beast.”
Jay Lynch
Pittsburgh
To the Editor:
To maintain a healthy banking system and economy, it is important to debunk Donald Trump’s persistent claim that his fraudulent asset valuations were harmless as they caused no financial injury to his lenders.
If we sit on our hands and do nothing about borrowers and banks taking and making loans backed by overvalued assets, we heighten the catastrophic risk of a bank going insolvent due to having inadequate, overvalued collateral to secure large loans if and when a default occurs.
Tolerance of this is a threat to the banking system as a whole and to the national economy because what starts as a single bank failure can metastasize into a cascade of banking system crashes.
The heightening of catastrophic risk to the national economy is a far cry from being harmless.
William August
Cambridge, Mass.