Friday
I’m here to report a literature sighting! A judge has just cited Alice through the Looking Glass and 1984 in his ruling that the Trump family must sit for depositions in a case involving its real estate practices.
Yesterday the Associated Press reported,
Former President Donald Trump, as well as his children Ivanka and Donald Jr., must sit for depositions in the New York attorney general’s civil investigation of their business practices, a New York judge ruled Thursday.
New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron also rejected an attempt to freeze the work of Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating whether Trump misled lenders, insurers or others in his family business’ financial statements. On several occasions throughout a two-hour hearing Thursday morning and in his ruling, the judge expressed skepticism toward the Trumps’ arguments that sitting for testimony in the civil investigation would undermine their constitutional rights.
The judge was particularly of skeptical of the looking-glass logic used by the Trump lawyers when it came to the Trumps’ accounting firm. Earlier this week, MazarsUSA declared that the information it has been receiving from the Trump Organization over the past ten years is so unreliable that it can no longer vouch for them. Most people have taken this to mean that the Trumps have been lying to the accounting firm about the value of their real estate assets. The Trump lawyer, however, argued that the Mazars declaration instead exonerates the Trump Organization and means that people should not go rooting around into the Organization’s past practices.
If that makes absolutely no sense to you, then you’ll understand why the judge declared the argument to be “as audacious as it is preposterous.” And why he turned to literature to express his shock and amazement:
“The idea that an accounting firm’s announcement that no one should rely on a decade’s worth of financial statements it issued based on the numbers submitted by an entity somehow exonerates that entity and renders an investigation into its past practices as moot is reminiscent of Lewis Carroll (‘When I use a word, Humpty Dumpty said … it means just what I chose it to mean — neither more nor less’); George Orwell (‘War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength’): and ‘alternative facts,'” Engoron wrote.
“Alternative facts” was the phrase used by Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway to defend Trump’s (false) assertion that his presidential inauguration attracted more people than Obama’s. I probably don’t need to gloss the passage from 1984, but here’s the passage from Looking Glass. Humpty Dumpty has just used the word “glory” in a way that confuses Alice:
“There’s glory for you!”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t—till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”
“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything, so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. “They’ve a temper, some of them—particularly verbs, they’re the proudest—adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs—however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!”
“Would you tell me, please,” said Alice “what that means?”
“Now you talk like a reasonable child,” said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. “I meant by ‘impenetrability’ that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.”
“That’s a great deal to make one word mean,” Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
“When I make a word do a lot of work like that,” said Humpty Dumpty, “I always pay it extra.”
“Oh!” said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
“Ah, you should see “em come round me of a Saturday night,” Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side: “for to get their wages, you know.”
(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I can’t tell you.)
Trump has not been held legally accountable for his use of words in the past, which I suppose has given him Humpty-Dumpty type mastery over them. One hopes that Trump’s words aren’t waiting for him to pay them, however. After all, he’s notorious for stiffing those who work for him.
