BREAKING NEWS
Judge Blasts Trump – Rejects ‘Quid Pro Quo’ Offer of DNA in Journalist’s Rape and Defamation Lawsuit
A federal judge has refused an offer from Donald Trump to provide his DNA to the court in what is being called a “quid pro quo” arrangement the ex-president’s attorney suggested after fighting the request for nearly three years. Trump is being sued for defamation by E. Jean Carroll, the journalist who alleges he raped her in a high-end Manhattan luxury goods store in the 1990’s, then defamed her by denying her allegations, saying she was “totally lying,” and declaring she wasn’t his “type.”
Carroll says she retained the Donna Karan coat she wore when Trump raped her, and that it contains his DNA. She had it tested and provided Trump with the report.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan blasted Trump for demanding Carroll provide the appendix to her DNA report in exchange for her DNA.
“Until February 10, 2023, about ten weeks before this case is set to be tried, Mr. Trump has refused to provide his DNA. Moreover, he has employed litigation tactics the effect and probable purpose of which have been to delay Ms. Carroll’s actions against him – an object that is significant in view of the fact that Ms. Carroll now is 79 years old,” the judge writes, according to a screenshot posted by Law & Crime’s Adam Klasfeld.
“Now,” the judge continues, bulleting his points, “after the time for pretrial discovery of evidence in both cases has expired, three days after Mr. Trump’s latest request for a multi-week trial postponement was substantially denied, one day after the parties filed a joint pretrial order in the first of these cases that makes clear that neither Ms. Carroll nor Mr. Trump intends to call any DNA experts as witnesses in the trial of that case, and on the eve of trial of at least the second-filed of these cases – Mr. Trump suddenly has proposed a deal. He has offered to provide a DNA sample but only on the condition that I require Ms. Carroll first to turn over to him a previously undisclosed appendix to the DNA report – the report that Ms. Carroll obtained and provided to Mr. Trump years ago.”
Breaking:
A federal judge REJECTS Trump’s “quid pro quo” offer to provide a DNA sample in exchange for the missing pages of @EJeanCarroll‘s report, slamming it as an 11th hour delay tactic.
Background and story soon, @LawCrimeNews https://t.co/HS97K15PwV
Key passage here pic.twitter.com/WIKxd9yglz
— Adam Klasfeld (@KlasfeldReports) February 15, 2023
At Law & Crime, Klasfeld reports, “The ruling means that Trump will not provide DNA sample before trial, ending an evidentiary dispute and talking point brewing for years in Carroll’s rape case.”
The Daily News adds Judge Kaplan also wrote there was no “legitimate basis for this Court to accept Mr. Trump’s offer to provide his DNA sample made contingent on the Court granting his application, which it does not.”
Last week, Case Western Reserve University law professor Cassandra Burke Robertson told Courthouse News, “Never say never, but I don’t see a legal basis for that argument,” referring to the proposal to provide DNA in exchange for the appendix to the report.
“There’s no quid pro quo in discovery. That is just not a legal concept that fits within the discovery paradigm,” Robertson said.
Judge Kaplan agreed, writing on Wednesday, “There is no justification for any such deal. Either Ms. Carroll is obliged to provide the omitted appendix or she is not. Either Mr. Trump is obliged to provide a DNA sample or he is not. Neither is a quid pro quo for the other.”
This is a breaking news and developing story.
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Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial have notified the ex-president’s attorneys they have a recording of him and a witness. The notification comes in the form of an automatic discovery form, CBS News reports, which “describes the nature of the charges against a defendant and a broad overview of the evidence that prosecutors will present at Trump’s preliminary hearing or at trial.”
CBS reports prosecutors have handed the recording over to Trump’s legal team.
It’s not known who the witness is, nor are any details known publicly about what the conversation entails, or even if it is just audio or if it includes video.
READ MORE: ‘Likely to Be Indicted Soon’: Trump Might Face Seven Different Felonies, Government Watchdog Says
According to the article’s author, CBS News’ Graham Kates, via Twitter, prosecutors say they also have recordings between two witnesses, a recording between a witness and a third party, and various recordings saved on a witness’s cell phones.
Manhattan prosecutors disclosed to Trump a recording of him and a witness in his criminal case. pic.twitter.com/EIz3bvpEkj
— Graham Kates (@GrahamKates) May 26, 2023
Trump is facing 34 felony counts in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case related to his allegedly unlawful attempt to hide hush money payoffs to a well-known porn star by falsifying business records to protect his 2016 presidential campaign.
See the discovery form above or at this link.
Image via Shutterstock
Former Special Counsel John Durham, who recently ended his four-year investigation into the FBI’s decision to launch an investigation into Russia’s attack on the 2016 election and any possible connection Donald Trump or his campaign had to those efforts, will testify before the Republican-majority House Judiciary Committee next month.
The Durham report, widely-panned by legal experts but praised by GOP partisans, was the culmination of an investigation many believe was started to appease then-President Donald Trump. Trump Attorney General Bill Barr secretly elevated Durham to Special Counsel status in October of 2020, effectively to allow his investigation to continue regardless of the result of the following month’s presidential election.
Durham ended up indicting just three people. He lost two cases and the third pleaded guilty to a minor charge.
Washington Post columnist Philip Bump published an analysis earlier this month titled, “Durham’s probe ends as it began: Pointing at trees to obscure the forest.”
But Durham’s report gives fodder to the far-right.
National security and legal experts have torn the Durham report apart, with some noting his investigation directly conflicts with findings from a DOJ Inspector General and the then-GOP majority Senate Intelligence Committee’s report.
Fox News reports Durham “will testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee about his report in June, a source has told Fox News on Friday.”
“The hearing will happen on Wednesday, June 21,” Fox adds. “The day before, Durham will appear before the House Intelligence Committee in a closed-door briefing.”
Republican Ron DeSantis will officially launch his 2024 presidential campaign in an event with a billionaire mogul who represents some elements of what conservative America greatly opposes: Big Tech, and clean and renewable energy.
The Florida Republican Governor, who has spent months traveling the country, will sit down with Musk and David Sacks on Wednesday, NBC News reports, when he is expected to formally announce his White House run. Musk is a Big Tech giant, the owner of the social media platform Twitter, the head of the electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, CEO of the space exploration company SpaceX, and founder of the electric vehicle public transportation company The Boring Company.
He is also the world’s second richest person.
“Musk and DeSantis will host an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats, on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and DeSantis supporter,” NBC adds. “That same evening, the campaign will release a launch video, and DeSantis will begin visiting several early states after Memorial Day.”
It’s unclear why DeSantis is choosing to let the momentum wane by pausing travel for several days.
Appearing to confirm his participation, Musk retweeted a Fox News reporter’s tweet announcing the Wednesday evening event. “Twitter Spaces” is also now trending.
Musk is a highly-polarizing figure, but he has publicly suggested he supports a DeSantis presidency.
“My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist,” Musk tweeted in November. Asked by a Twitter user if he would support a DeSantis run, Musk tweeted one word: “Yes.”
DeSantis is far from centrist. He has hammered together what some call one of the most extreme and authoritarian state governments in modern America.
One year ago in April Vox alleged, “Ron DeSantis is following a trail blazed by a Hungarian authoritarian,” doing, “The Florida governor isn’t doing ‘competent Trumpism.’ He’s inventing American Orbánism.”
“By operationalizing the culture war into a set of concrete policies, DeSantis has transformed the nation’s third most populous state,” TIME’s Molly Ball wrote last week. “What was once the butt of jokes about gators and retirees is now the swaggering, Southern-tinged Free State of Florida—where men are men, woke is broke, and business is booming; 1,200 net new residents arrive every day.”
And the headline on a March piece at The Atlantic reads: “How Did America’s Weirdest, Most Freedom-Obsessed State Fall for an Authoritarian Governor?”
And an April opinion piece by U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Democrat of Florida, in the Sun Sentinel reads: “Ron DeSantis’ anti-choice extremism will keep hurting Florida’s women and girls.”
MSNBC also announced the event on-air.
Watch below or at this link.
BREAKING: Ron DeSantis to announce he is running for president during a Twitter Spaces discussion with Elon Musk on Wednesday night, sources familiar with the plans tell NBC News. pic.twitter.com/e3qkU4wEhh
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 23, 2023
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