A Morally Corrupt Legal System By Charles Taylor (Florida)
We have been covering the debate centred around the New York jury award to E. Jean Carroll in her defamation case against Donald Trump, being the sum of $ 83.3 million. There have been larger damages awards, such as the billions against Dissent Righter Alex Jones, but that was from multiple counts. As detailed at the American Thinker.com, by a former attorney, this case is significant as it shows how a legal system can be corrupted by Left wing judges lawyers, and indeed a jury who ignored their oath of being objective and played politics, as only the Left can do.
The case is extraordinary as the defendant was uncertain of the year in which the alleged assault occurred and fuzzy about details. She claimed to be wearing a certain outfit that did not exist at the final time she decided upon. And, the story that she gave fitted perfectly a TV episode of NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, right down to the actual department store where the supposed assault occurred! The was no other "evidence" for the plaintiff's story, no video footage, since even the year when this alleged assault occurred was uncertain.
As well, the jury gave such a high award to punish Trump for his disagreements with the judge, which did not give them fair play, threatening to jail Trump's attorney for making an argument. All this shows how far a legal system can fall under the Left. And the lesson for other jurisdictions such as Australia, is that the same cancer is sitting in your legal system, since law schools, who produce the lawyers who become judges, are all Left, if not radically so. It is already seen in family law decisions where each day, men get skinned.
"The headline is that a jury awarded E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in her defamation claim against Donald Trump. What's behind the headline is infinitely more important, for it shows how America's leftist-run judicial system works.
I should explain that I come with a strong bias to this matter. I worked as a litigator for almost thirty years in the San Francisco Bay Area. That experience left me with an abiding hatred for leftist judges.
They routinely showed themselves to be disinterested in law and facts. Instead, they used their powerful positions to dispense "justice"—only their idea of "justice" was whatever comported with leftist ideology. That meant that landlords lost, banks lost, insurance companies lost, and anyone else whom the judges didn't like lost—and they lost for dishonest reasons. I never minded losing a case I knew was weak; I resented losing a good case, and I became conservative for that reason.
All of which gets me [to] the judicial system in the case of Trump and E. Jean Carroll. Here are some pertinent facts:
In 2012, NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit had a scene in which a character talked about role-playing a rape fantasy in Bergdorf Goodman:
"Role-play took place in the dressing room of Bergdorf's. While she was trying on lingerie I would burst in," the character says.
In 2019, for the first time ever, Carroll said publicly that Trump had sexually assaulted her in 1994 in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman, an assault that lasted three minutes.
Also in 2019, Carroll explained on CNN that "most people think of rape as being sexy." I don't know those "most people." Do you?
When Trump heard Carroll's claims, he denied them, which is what every man does when accused of rape, especially if he's innocent. He also claimed that (a) he didn't know Carroll and (b) that he would never have gone near her as she was a "whack job" and wasn't "his type."
Carroll countered the claim that Trump didn't know her by digging up a picture of her standing with Trump and Ivana at a party in 1987 as proof that they did know each other. Under the standard of "having talked briefly at a party," I know or have known George H. W. Bush, Brit Hume, Peggy Fleming, California governors Jerry Brown and Pete Wilson, violinists Pinchas Zukerman and Itzhak Perlman, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, all of whom are just some of the many famous people I've briefly talked to at parties. I can assure you, though, that none of them know me.
In 2019, because the statute of limitations for rape—a serious crime—had long since expired, Carroll sued Trump for defamation, claiming that his repudiation of the rape allegation harmed her professionally and hurt her feelings. Given that she went into the stratosphere on the left after she attacked Trump, I've struggled to understand her claim of professional harm, but whatever.
Of course, the defamation claim worked only if Carroll could prove that she was stating the truth when she accused Trump of rape. But as noted above, Carroll never pressed that claim in a timely criminal proceeding, when there might be physical evidence, and memories would be fresh—so fresh that Carroll would have remembered the year in which this traumatizing (or "sexy") event happened. Instead, Carroll admitted that the clothes she claimed to have worn when assaulted weren't manufactured until a later date. Therefore, so she adjusted her allegations to say Trump's assault occurred in 1995 or 1996.
In 2022, New York State upped the ante against Trump by passing its "Adult Survivors Act," a law intended solely to create a window of time in which Carroll could file a civil sexual assault suit against Trump. Carroll promptly filed suit against Trump and reiterated her defamation claim. Incidentally, Reid Hoffman, a major Democrat party and Nikki Haley donor, helped fund her litigation.
In May 2023, based upon allegations that were almost 20 years old and came with no corroborating evidence—and, of course, were not subject to the stringent "beyond a reasonable doubt" burden of proof for a criminal case—the first trial against Trump began. The judge refused to admit the infamous Access Hollywood tape into evidence, explaining that it proved that Trump had admitted to assaulting women. In fact, the tape clearly shows that Trump simply said that when you're rich and powerful, a certain class of woman will let you get away with anything. The judge also refused to admit into evidence Carroll's comment about people finding rape "sexy."
The jury concluded that Trump committed sexual abuse, battery, and defamation and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. Trump again asserted his innocence.
Carroll promptly sought more damages because of Trump's post-verdict denials of wrongdoing. The judge in this second trial precluded any evidence about Trump's alleged wrongdoings; instead, he explicitly and graphically told the jury that the prior jury trial proved indisputably that Trump was guilty of sexual assault.
On Friday, the jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million against Trump in damages for defamation and emotional distress. Carroll's attorney said that part of the verdict came about because the jury was offended that Trump didn't respect the judge. That is not a sound legal basis for a jury award and, standing alone, demands reversal.
I've been careful just to state the facts here. You can draw your own conclusions.
Having said that, and continuing in journalistic mode, meaning that I neither confirm nor dispute the statements below but report them solely as news, here is Trump's summation of the case against him, which he published before the verdict:
After the verdict, Trump had this to say:
I have no comment about Carroll's veracity. I can only say that the New York system, from the legislature down to the judge on the case, had a very specific outcome in mind: Politically, it would benefit Democrats to have a guilty verdict against Trump. This is not how the justice system is supposed to work (and that is true whether the verdict was righteous or not). Instead, what played out in New York was a combination of government and judicial tyranny that is devastating to a free country."
"Here are some facts about Carroll's story that the establishment media do not want the public to know:
1. Bergdorf Goodman has no surveillance video of the alleged incident.
2. There are zero witnesses to the alleged sexual attack.
3. Carroll first came forward — conveniently — with the allegations while promoting her book What Do We Need Men For? in 2019, which featured a list of "The Most Hideous Men of My Life."
4. Carroll was unable to remember when this alleged attack even occurred. She told her lawyer in 2023, "This question, the when, the when, the date, has been something I've [been] constantly trying to pin down." She has jumped years — originally beginning with 1994, then moving to 1995, and even floating to 1996. She cannot remember the season in which the alleged attack occurred either.
5. The Donna Karan blazer dress she claims to have worn during the alleged incident was not even available at the time of her claims. Trump Attorney Boris Epshteyn told reporters, "She said, 'This is the dress I wore in 1994.' They went back, they checked. The dress wasn't even made in 1994."
"And that's why the date's moved around. This is the 80s. Is it the 90s? Is it the 2000s? President Trump has consistently stated that he was falsely accused, and he has the right to defend himself," he added.
6. She never came forward with these allegations over the years despite constantly being open about sexuality, posting things that were very sexual in nature on social media — many of which Trump has shared. …
9. Joe Tacopina, an attorney for Trump, pointed out in May 2023 that Carroll's entire story has incredible similarities to a 2012 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.In that episode, titled "Theatre and Tricks," an individual talks about a rape fantasy in Bergdorf Goodman — the same departmentstore where Carroll claims the incident took place.
Breitbart News detailed:
"Role-play took place in the dressing room of Bergdorf's. While she was trying on lingerie I would burst in," the character in the episode said. According to Carroll, the two were in the lingerie section, and Trump allegedly assaulted her in the dressing room.
Carroll claimed to be "aware" of the episode but denied watching it. According to the New York Post, Carroll said the similarities between what she claims happened to her and the show's plot were "amazing."
"An amazing coincidence?" Trump's lawyer asked.
"Yes, it's astonishing," Carroll replied, ultimately denying her allegation was based on a television show."
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