Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at 40 Wall Street after a pre-trial hearing on March 25, 2024 in New York City.

One of Donald Trump’s more ridiculous schticks is to paint himself as a victim of unfair treatment by some vast liberal conspiracy. His fundraising material casts him as a hero of the working class, persecuted for keeping the radicals “from coming after you.”

In reality, what Trump is whining about is that he doesn’t always get the special treatment he’s come to expect.

Nowhere was that more evident lately than in the break he got this past week from a New York appellate court in an ongoing fraud case. While Trump appeals a more than $464 million judgment, the court reduced the bond he had to post from close to half a billion dollars to just $175 million.

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Yes, “just $175 million” sounds contradictory. But let’s put aside the numbers, which, after all, are merely a reflection of the magnitude of Trump’s documented fraud. Let’s talk about the law — in whose eyes we’re all supposed to be equal. Except, of course, Trump, in the view of Donald Trump.

Dealing with an onerous bond, it turns out, is actually something Trump and I have in common.

My side of this story goes back to a 1908 case known as The Matter of Newcomb. It concerned a battle over the estate of a wealthy woman, Josephine Louise Newcomb, who divided her time........

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