Donald Trump has been found guilty of defamation against E. Jean Carroll, who alleged he sexually assaulted her in the past. Trump denied this and claimed he did not know her, and made a statement about her mental state. And for merely stating his case he was found guilty of defamation, with $ 83.3 million damages! There has been critique of the case, especially by Trump's lawyer Alina Habba, who in a statement (see below) said that there were unreasonable restrictions put upon what could be said in defence, hence making a fair defence impossible.
And, as also has been detailed, there is a conflict of interest" between E. Jean Carroll's lawyer and the judge who presided over her defamation case, with the two of them working together in the 1990s. Trump's lawyer should have found this out, but maybe did and left it lying for appeal. Talk about all of them being part of the team! What is important about this case is it shows that the rule of law has become corrupted under the influence of the Left, and the Left dominates the legal profession now. It certainly challenges the glazed eye view of legal objectivity that many conservatives have, with the courts now being continuous with power politics.
"Donald Trump's lawyers will use an "insane" and previously unknown "conflict of interest" between E. Jean Carroll's lawyer and the judge presiding over her defamation case against the former president as the basis of their appeal seeking to toss the eye-popping $83.3 million jury verdict, The Post has learned.
Trump lawyer Alina Habba said she was unaware Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan worked together in the early 1990s at the same powerhouse white-shoe law firm until Saturday, when asked about it by Post columnist Charles Gasparino, who was told by a source that the judge was once Roberta Kaplan's "mentor.
"It was never disclosed. It's insane and so incestuous," Habba said, insisting neither the 79-year-old judge nor Roberta Kaplan, 57, who aren't related, disclosed the "conflict of interest" and a violation of judicial ethics rules.
Roberta Kaplan worked at Paul, Weiss Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison in Midtown from 1992 to 2016, before leaving to become a founding partner of Kaplan Hecker & Fink, according to her LinkedIn page.
"This is news to us," she continued. "We are going to include this in our appeal and take appropriate measures. The fact it wasn't disclosed is an ethics violation."
During her early years at Paul Weiss, she worked as associate of the firm at the same time as Judge Kaplan, who was a partner there until 1994 when he was appointed to the federal bench by then-President Bill Clinton.
Zak Sawyer, a rep for Roberta Kaplan, insisted no conflict exists.
"They overlapped for less than two years in the early 1990s at a large law firm when he was a senior partner and she was a junior associate and she never worked for him," said Sawyer, who declined to provide further comment.
But a former Paul Weiss partner who asked not to be named said like all associates at the firm, Roberta Kaplan did her best to distinguish herself before partners, including Lewis Kaplan.
"Lew was like her mentor," claimed the former partner."
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/01/wow-nikki-haley-loses-maga-nation-forever-one/
"Attorney Alina Habba: Ladies and gentlemen, you are not allowed to be stripped of every defense that you have. You are not allowed to be told that you can't bring it up. And imagine a point where a judge tells the lawyer before your client, the former President of the United States, the leading candidate and obvious nominee for the Republican Party, before he takes the stand to defend himself. Ms. Haba, tell me the questions you're going to ask in open court and tell me exactly what he's going to respond. And then edited my questions, edited the response he was allowed to give.
And guess what my client did? He took the stand. He abided by the rules of this corrupt system that I have seen.
We will immediately appeal. We will set aside that ridiculous jury. And I just want to remind you all of one thing. I will continue with President Trump to fight for everybody's first Amendment right to speak. Everybody's a right to defend themselves when they are wrongfully accused. And to be able to say, I didn't do it, and to double and triple and quadruple down and say, this is wrong. This is wrong. We are in the state of New York. We are in a New York jury. And that is why we are seeing these witch hunts, these hoaxes, as he calls them, and this is another one of them be brought in New York, in states where they know they will get juries like this."