Speaking with the hosts of the Daily Beast’s “New Abnormal” podcast, investigations reporter Jose Pagliery suggested Donald Trump faces the very real possibility that he could be found “liable for rape” while still being investigated by the Department of Justice, to say nothing of it happening as he is running for president again.
As part of the interview about the DOJ’s decision last week to issue a brief stating the former president does not have “unlimited immunity” when it comes to civil suits filed against him by Capitol cops who were injured during the Jan. 6 insurrection he incited, talk turned to E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit filed against Trump for sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the mid-90’s.
Discussing the current fight over the admissibility of the notorious “Access Hollywood” tape where Trump boasted about his ability to sexually assault women at will into evidence, Pagliery suggested that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Federal District Court in Manhattan has a low tolerance to Trump’s “bullshit” and that the trial could move quickly.
With that said, he suggested, even when taking into account the unpredictability of trials before jurors, that the former president would be under a cloud of a finding of rape while trying to be re-elected.
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“This case is pretty interesting, by the way,” Pagliery told the hosts. “I keep referring to it as a Bill Cosby-like trial so that people can understand what this is. This isn’t a criminal charge, but this is a rape trial; this will be very much like the Bill Cosby trial. One where a person who claims to be a victim will be able to potentially hold another person who is rich and powerful accountable for their money.”
“And let’s not discount how damaging this could be,” he elaborated. “If she ends up winning, we have a presidential candidate who has been found liable — a jury has found him liable for rape. That’s astonishing and astounding in the midst of criminal investigations in New York and Georgia and at the DOJ.”
You can listen here.
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