Trump found liable for sexual battery, defamation

Post Reply New Topic

Well he dominated in the NH Primary and Iowa Caucus.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2024/jan/23/new-hampshire-primary-election-results

NH was considered Haley's best chance at mounting a serious challenge, and she failed. He'll be the nominee, more important though is that no Republican will vote for Biden, no matter how much they may dislike Trump, they hate Biden more. And those who typically vote Democratic have very little enthusiasm for Biden. Average Americans on both sides of the aisle blame Biden for the recent inflation, and aren't happy about his recent support for Israel. There's also a lot of suspicion implicating him in his son Hunter's alleged crimes.

But if you can scare up some credible analyses that show how Trump can't win, I'd love to read them. But I'm serious about reading. Please no YouTube.

First I am an American; I think when push comes to shove and people are behind the curtain in the voting booth they will not vote for Trump. I personally feel that the up coming presidential election will be a referendum on abortion. Trump appointed cronies overturned Roe v Wade . People can see what a far right government demonstrated by numerous states can do to abortion rights. If Trump is elected imagine the harm he could do from a national level. People are not going to forget this.

Three days after a jury awarded her over $83 million for Donald Trump's repeated defamatory statements, columnist E. Jean Carroll vowed to use the money on "something Donald Trump hates."

"If it'll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that's my intent," Carroll told George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America," suggesting she would create a "fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump."

Sitting feet from Trump in court for five days, Carroll described that her fears leading up to the trial about interacting with the former president washed away as soon as the trial began.

"It was like he was like nothing, like an emperor without clothes," Carroll said. "All my terror leading up to it, and there he is. He's just something in a suit."

Trump's in-person attendance at the trial – after missing last year's trial – briefly interrupted the proceedings, including when the former president muttered defamatory statements in earshot of the jury or walked out during the closing statement delivered by Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan.

Kaplan, however, said Trump's behavior only validated the central thesis of her case that Trump is "a bully who can't follow the rules."

"I definitely thought we got a few more million dollars immediately," Kaplan said about Trump walking out of court during her closing statement. "I was like, well, that's worth about $10 million."

Kaplan added that she is confident they will be able to collect the $83.3 million, explaining that Trump could either pay a bond or deposit the money in full until he appeals.

"I'm pretty confident one way or the other. We might not get it right away. But one way or the other, he owns a lot of real estate. It can be sold. We will collect the judgment," Kaplan said.

While Trump has not mentioned Carroll by name in the days since the verdict, Carroll said that she is not confident the former president will refrain from defaming her, and her lawyer said "all options are on the table" if Trump decides to defame her client again.

If we have to bring another case, we'll bring another case. It's just going to be more money," Kaplan said.

This is Jan 29th. For those of you who might be interested and not know; E. Jean Carroll will be the guest tonight @9:00PM on MSNBC on Rachael Maddow

But if Trump doesn't pay, wouldn't Ms. Carroll have a lien on his properties?
That might give him pause for thought.

Former President Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habba on Tuesday backed off of a conflict of interest claim against the judge who presided over the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial after Carroll's lawyer threatened to pursue sanctions.

Habba on Monday filed a letter with the court citing a New York Post story which said that U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, who are not related, had worked at the major law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in the 1990s. An unidentified former partner at the firm, which employs around 1,000 lawyers, told the Post that Lewis Kaplan had been “like her mentor."

Habba told the New York Post that the situation was "insane and so incestuous." This is news to us,” Habba told the paper on Saturday, a day after the jury in the case had hit Trump with an $83.3 million verdict in the Carroll case. “We are going to include this in our appeal and take appropriate measures. The fact it wasn’t disclosed is an ethics violation.”

The article included a quote from Roberta Kaplan's spokesman Zak Sawyer, who said while they'd worked at the same large law firm, they “overlapped for less than two years in the early 1990s." The now-judge "was a senior partner and she was a junior associate and she never worked for him,” Sawyer said.

In her letter on Monday, Habba said, "If Your Honor truly worked with Ms. Kaplan in any capacity—especially if there was a mentor/mentee relationship—that fact should have been disclosed before any case involving these parties was permitted to proceed forward." She suggested he had violated the judicial code of conduct and that she might use the allegation as ammunition in a request for a new trial.

She noted she'd had "many clashes" with the judge during the trial and another last year and said he'd been "overtly hostile towards defense counsel." Her letter suggested the "conflict" might have something to do with his "rulings, tone, and demeanor."

"Here, without knowing more information (or having a specific factual denial by Your Honor that you had a mentor-mentee relationship with Ms. Kaplan), we are unable to flesh out our position concerning what specific relief should be requested, including, but not limited to, moving for new trials on the issues of liability and damages. Surely, however, this Court should provide defense counsel with all of the relevant facts," Habba wrote. "We thank the Court for its prompt attention to this troubling matter."

Roberta Kaplan responded in a letter of her own to the judge Tuesday, saying the "allegations are utterly baseless."

She said she started at the Paul, Weiss firm as a junior litigation associate in Oct. 1992, when Lewis Kaplan was a senior litigation partner. He was nominated to the bench by then-President Bill Clinton and confirmed by the Senate in Aug. 1994.

"During that relatively brief period more than thirty years ago, I do remember the Paul, Weiss partners with whom I worked and none of them was Your Honor. More specifically, I have no recollection from that time period of ever interacting with Your Honor on a case, participating with Your Honor in a client or case-related meeting, or attending a court proceeding with Your Honor. In fact, I remember no direct interaction from that time period with Your Honor at all," her letter said.

Needless to say, at no point have we ever had a “‘mentor’ type relationship,” as alleged by Ms. Habba," the attorney said.

Roberta Kaplan called the allegation part of the Trump team's scheme to discredit the judicial system and suggested that she might seek sanctions against Habba.

"While Ms. Habba ends her letter by characterizing this as a 'troubling matter,' what is actually troubling is both the substance and timing of her false accusations of impropriety," she wrote.

"From the very start of the recently concluded trial, Donald Trump and Ms. Habba have pushed a false narrative of judicial bias so that they could characterize any jury verdict against Trump as the product of a corrupt system. While that strategy has now moved into its post-verdict phase, it is now time for Defendant’s false and vexatious claims of bias or impropriety to stop."

Habba responded with another letter a short time later, saying she hadn't made any "false allegations."

"The purpose of the letter was simply to inquire as to whether there is any merit to a recently published New York Post story which reported on the alleged existence of such a relationship," she wrote. "Since Ms. Kaplan has now denied that there was ever a mentor-mentee relationship between herself and Your Honor, this issue has seemingly been resolved."

But if Trump doesn't pay, wouldn't Ms. Carroll have a lien on his properties?
That might give him pause for thought.