Former President Donald J. Trump was found liable of having defamed and committing battery (sexual assault, specifically) against the New York-based journalist, E. Jean Carroll, in the 1990s.
Trump was made to pay $5 million for his defamatory comments directed against Carroll.
Since that trial, the former president’s attorneys have argued that the failure of the New York-based jury to find Trump guilty of raping Carroll, as E. Jean Carroll had accused Trump of doing, indicated that the $5 million payout was “grossly excessive.” Trump’s lawyers have asked for a new case based on this fact. And they’ve been denied.
Donald Trump: A Rapist?
In a rare action, the judge who presided over the case, Lewis Kaplan, rebuked the Trump legal team in public. According to Kaplan, the jury could not have found Trump guilty of the rape charge because the New York state definition of rape is very narrow.
Yet, Kaplan argued that Trump’s alleged unwanted touching of Carroll’s breasts as well as Trump’s supposed digital penetration of her female parts while the two were at a Bergdorff Goodman location in Manhattan in the 1990s, does qualify as sexual assault.
What’s more, it explains why the New York-based jury found Trump liable for battery. If they could have found Trump guilty of rape, they would have.
That’s a far cry from “not guilty!”
Trump is the Most Prosecuted President Ever
Now, I’ll be the first one to say that the bulk of the cases against the forty-fifth president are a combination of overamped for political purposes or completely unfounded. The Stormy Daniels “zombie case” involving alleged hush money payments to the adult film star in 2016, for example, was ridiculous from start-to-finish—Trump’s guilt or innocence notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, the federal grand jury case indicting the former president for allegedly mishandling classified documents was absurdly politicized—especially because President Joe Biden is accused of literally doing the same thing for a far longer period of time.
The January 6 riot grand jury investigation (led by the same DOJ special counsel as the classified documents case is being led by, Jack Smith) is another one of those ridiculously overcharged cases that’s only being pursue because the Administrative State wants badly to damage Trump’s reelection chances in 2024.
At the same time, though, the Atlanta-based grand jury investigation into claims that former President Trump attempted to interfere in the 2020 Presidential Election in Georgia are not unfounded.
After all, in that case, there is a recording of the president’s phone call with election officials in Georgia in which it sounds as though he’s pressuring them to find an additional 11,780 votes to hand him the contested state in that year’s vote count.
If there’s one thing we should know about President Donald J. Trump, it’s that the man is a dynamic political operator with much baggage. Sometimes that’s par for the course. In other cases, such as with the provably false Russia collusion investigation that dogged the first year-and-a-half of Trump’s term in office, Trump’s political rivals are abusing their positions of power to stymie him.
Donald Trump is His Own Worst Enemy
Nevertheless, Mr. Trump is himself a man who regularly makes himself susceptible to political attacks and legal action with his ceaseless (often self-incriminating) social media rants, his loose talk in the media (remember his bizarre admission to Lester Holt in 2017 that he had fired FBI Director James Comey for leading an investigation into allegations that he was colluding with Russia to rig the 2016 Election?), and his own egregious behavior.
Trump has been compared to a child who keeps putting his hand closer and closer to an open flame, waiting to get burned, and then, when he inevitably does get burned, Trump cries about it.
There is a stunning lack of impulse control displayed by the septuagenarian that is making it increasingly difficult to defend him.
Even some of his closest allies have acknowledged privately that the former president makes it nearly impossible to reliably defend from attacks. It’s akin to standing up in the middle of a firefight, pulling one’s pants down, and mooning the enemy—then getting angry when bullets hit you in the derriere.
Of course, it makes for quite a show. And if that’s Trump’s intention then, well, he should be congratulated because he’s the greatest show on Earth.
Character is Destiny
If, however, Donald Trump wants to win, retain, and use power effectively, then he needs to completely recalibrate the way he’s behaved. Sadly, character is destiny.
Trump’s character, regardless of how badly his enemies have abused the legal system and our domestic security services to attack him, is lacking.
That’s why, even with all the advantages that come with being a celebrity and a former president running for reelection, Trump won’t be president again.
He should probably get a better legal team—if any skilled lawyer has the gumption to work for such a mercurial person.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (Encounter Books), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
From 19FortyFive
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