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‘War on Women’: Trump Defense Is Now to Blame E. Jean Carroll Say Legal Experts
Donald Trump’s legal team appears to have cemented defense their strategy and are now blaming the victim, E. Jean Carroll, in the penalty phase of her defamation and sexual abuse civil case against the ex-president, experts are saying. This portion of the trial is to determine how much Trump must pay Carroll, a journalist who this week on the stand detailed how Trump’s attacks cost her her valuable reputation and her income.
“Attended the E Jean Carroll trial today,” writes former FBI General Counsel and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann. He notes that “the Trump defense appears to be Carroll is to blame, since by going public with the sexual assault claim, Trump had to defame her and her reputation suffered only because of her decision to report the assault.”
“Trump defense=war on women,” Weissmann adds.
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin, also at the trial in Manhattan, adds a detailed explanation.
READ MORE: ‘Jailing and Killing Americans’: Expert Issues Warning on Trump’s Latest Claim
Trump attorney Alina Habba’s “strategy seems to be a variation on a well-known political theme: Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Rubin reveals.
The answer is a qualified “yes,” but she explains why the question itself is a poor one.
“Carroll earns more money today by posting to her Substack roughly three times a week than she did in 2019, when she wrote her column for Elle once a month for half the salary she had been paid just a couple of years prior,” says Rubin.
“But the attempt to prove the backlash to Carroll’s account predated Trump’s attack fell flat, in large part because the tweets Habba showed were qualitatively different than the violent threats & accusations of paid political work that began with Trump’s 6/21/19 attack,” Rubin writes. “And those threats, as Carroll powerfully testified yesterday and today, have never stopped, ending her world as she knew it. Even beyond the threats, she maintained, more people know her today, but she is also reviled as a liar, a wack job, and a partisan operative.”
Rubin explains that “Habba wanted the jury to doubt Carroll’s credibility because she has (gasp!) written about sex openly and with humor. She’s even written about ‘dominat[ing] men’ and jokingly asked what women should do about the problem of their partner’s penises.”
READ MORE: Brown Bags and Ballots: Viral Videos Capture Chaotic Iowa Caucus System
CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen earlier Thursday surmised damages the jury might require Trump to pay Carroll could be “big.”
“E. Jean Carroll is a powerful witness,” Eisen wrote. “Combine that with Trump’s rude demeanor & asides—big damages award likely coming.”
Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Signorelli offered more insight into damages.
“The jury will hear about how ‘wealthy’ Trump says he is. Punitive damages are in part based on the defendant’s wealth [because] they are meant to punish a wrongdoer and only a large award can do so w/ a well to do defendant.”
He says he’s expecting “an extremely large award.”
MSNBC executive producer Kyle Griffin highlights how much Trump’s actions might cost the ex-president who is an adjudicated rapist.
“Northwestern professor Ashlee Humphreys, who was called as a witness by E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers as an expert on damages, testified it could cost up to $12.1 million for Carroll to repair her reputation with those who likely believed Donald Trump.”
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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.
Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”
“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.
One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.
“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”
READ MORE: ‘Rejection of Trump’: 1 in 5 Indiana GOP Voters Just Cast Their Ballot for Nikki Haley
Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”
“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”
“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”
“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.
On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.
In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.
Listen to a short clip below or at this link.
ICYMI: @realDonaldTrump joined @NickKayal & @DawnStensland sharing his perspective on Title IX…
Watch below or listen on @Audacy pic.twitter.com/wzx0QxKPJ7
— Talk Radio 1210 WPHT (@1210WPHT) May 10, 2024
READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
A Fox News panel discussing the Trump New York criminal trial debated whether or not the indicted ex-president could attack the judge’s daughter, with former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer insisting he should, and claiming doing so would not violate the terms of the gag order.
“President Trump needs to stop calling the judge ‘conflicted.’ He needs to explain why he’s conflicted,” Fleischer said Friday to a panel that included former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Every day of the trial he goes in there, he says, ‘the judge is conflicted, conflicted bigger than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life.’ He doesn’t explain how or why. He needs to say that the judge’s daughter works for a Democratic political consulting firm that does anti-Trump business. He needs to explain it. Otherwise, it’s just an assertion with no proof. And the President if he’s going to say it, back it up. Explain.”
“I think that’s a violation of the gag order, is it not?” a Fox panelist replied.
“No, he can criticize the judge,” McEnany responded.
READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
“Not the judge but the family,” the panelist added.
“But when he says the judge is conflicted, you can still explain how and why, and I think comply with a gag,” Fleischer insisted.
The panelists then agreed Donald Trump has been “measured” in his remarks.
National security attorney Brad Moss weighed in on social media, posting the relevant portion of the gag order and writing that Fleischer “effectively recommends Trump violate the terms of the gag order.”
The gag order in part reads: “Defendant is directed to refrain from” … “Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staffs work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result.”
Despite Trump’s repeated attacks, an ethics panel last year cleared Judge Juan Merchan of any issues surrounding his daughter’s work.
On Monday, Judge Merchan warned Trump he may throw him in jail if he violates the gag order again.
Watch below or at this link.
Fleischer: Trump needs to talk about Judge Merchan’s daughter.
McDowell: I think that violates the gag order
Kayleigh: No, he can criticize the judge pic.twitter.com/CLgNxNpg6B
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 10, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil
A federal appeals court panel of three judges has upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and former Trump chief strategist and senior White House advisor. Legal experts say he can appeal but ultimately he will he headed to prison.
Bannon had refused to comply with a subpoena lawfully-issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
“Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury convicted him of two counts of contempt of Congress,” Politico reports Friday. “But Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed to postpone the jail term while Bannon appealed the decision, agreeing that the complex mix of laws that govern executive privilege and testimonial immunity for White House aides could be overturned by higher courts.”
The appeals court panel includes judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, according to CNN’s Zachary Cohen.
In their ruling the judges wrote: “Public accounts indicated that Bannon had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day,” and noted, “In addition to the podcast prediction, Bannon had reportedly participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”
READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman
Politico noted the “three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bannon’s argument, saying the former aide and prominent podcaster had no legal rationale for his blanket refusal to appeal before the Jan. 6 committee — and that long-standing case law.”
Bannon is a peddler of conspiracy theories whose podcast “was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts,” according to The New York Times, citing a Brookings study.
“Bannon is unlikely to have to report to prison immediately,” NBC News reports.
Legal experts weighed in on the question of prison for Bannon.
READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil
“And now it’s time for Bannon to be given a date to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence,” remarked MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor.
“Bannon is effectively out of appeals,” observed professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney. “He can delay a little bit longer, asking for the full court to review the decision en banc & asking SCOTUS to hear his case on cert, but neither one of those things will happen. Bannon is going to prison.”
Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter remarked, “it’s slammer time.”
‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students
Ari Fleischer Offers Donald Trump Advice Attorney Says ‘Effectively’ Violates Gag Order
Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman
‘Literally Willing to Take Bribes’: Report of Trump Promise to Big Oil Fuels Concerns
News3 days agoHouse Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman
News3 days agoBannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
News3 days ago‘On Day One’: Trump Vows to End Protections for LGBTQ Students
News3 days agoAri Fleischer Offers Donald Trump Advice Attorney Says ‘Effectively’ Violates Gag Order