Anti-Donald Trump Hyperbole in Rape Case Leaves No One Listening. In Many Respects, Donald Trump ‘Broke’ America – Once upon a time, a rape allegation would be enough to sink a politician’s career; however, years of partisan attacks against former President Donald Trump that have subsequently proven groundless have numbed his base to listen to his accusers.
Examples include the infamous Trump Russia tape mentioned in the Steele Dossier that proved to be the product of Russian disinformation.
Then you have the FBI FD-1023 document about Joe Biden’s alleged involvement in a plot to fire Ukraine’s prosecutor general. It offers corroboration for a key part of Trump’s request to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into the claim that led to his first impeachment.
Judge Finds Donald Trump Rape Denial Lacks Merit
Trump denies knowing E. Jean Carroll personally let alone raping her.
The alleged incident took place during the mid-1990s in a dressing room at Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store; however, the judge in the case says not so fast.
The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse in a May ruling but did not find that he raped Carroll as she suggested.
Federal District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that the term “rape” only pertained to criminal prosecutions under New York state law in his ruling denying Trump a new trial.
“The jury’s unanimous verdict in Carroll II was almost entirely in favor of Ms. Carroll. The only point on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proved that Mr. Trump had ‘raped’ her within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law,” Kaplan ruled. “Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the ****** or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called ‘rape’ under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled ‘sexual abuse.’
Kaplan continued: “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
The judge made his ruling in response to a motion by Trump to throw out the $2 million in compensatory damages that the jury awarded Carroll. He noted the jury found that Trump had molested her with his fingers “causing immediate pain and long-lasting emotional and psychological harm.”
He made his ruling based on Carroll’s testimony during the trial and corroborating testimony by her friends Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin who testified that Caroll had told them about the incident at the time.
They told her to report it to the police, but she refused.
Kaplan ruled that the testimony offered during the trial met Caroll’s burden of proof to prove that Trump lied when he called her claim about the alleged rape a “hoax.”
Trump faces a second trial in the first case brought against him by Carroll in January.
Donald Trump Opponents Baffled By GOP Loyalty
“Yet Kaplan’s opinion wasn’t nearly the top news story of the day. It was merely another data point of our deeply deranged political moment. Despite that ruling, Donald J. Trump remains the clear front-runner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination,” MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes wrote. “Even though he faces multiple felony charges and a third (and perhaps) fourth indictment, Trump’s hold on this party is as strong as ever.”
Sykes continued: “At this point, after seven years of Trump’s destructive march through truth, decency and the soul of the GOP, we’ve been numbed by the seemingly endless parade of lies, insults, threats and contempt for the rule of law.”
A ‘Broken’ America: Hyperbole Has Stopped People From Listening
Trump’s base looks at deep blue Manhattan and sees a judge and a jury motivated by anti-Trump animus.
The days of impartial justice are over.
If Democrats treated the sexual indiscretions of people like Bill Clinton and Hunter Biden the way they have treated Trump’s alleged sexual indiscretions maybe people would listen. Their hyperbole has made it such that no one is listening.
Democrats should have remembered the story of the boy who cried wolf. If you cry wolf enough people will ignore you when you are telling the truth ― if you are telling the truth. Years of Russia hoaxes and partisan efforts to demonize Trump have transformed him into a political martyr. Anti-Trump hyperbole only makes him more popular.
Republicans might start taking accusations against Trump seriously if Democrats were to hold their own to the same standards, they hold Trump to. Truth is the first casualty of partisanship.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
From 19FortyFive
The Second American Civil War Has Begun
