Last year, a jury found that Donald Trump had libeled E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages. That made Trump mad, so he kept on libeling her. Today a jury ordered him to pay another $83 million—most of it just for being a malicious asshole. The Washington Post passes along some commentary:
What’s the point of ordering Donald Trump to pay $88 [sic] million to his accuser? “The whole point of this, this enormous damages — unprecedented damages now — is to tell Donald Trump to shut up,” John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general, said on Fox News.
Good luck with that! I wonder if Trump will go septendecuple-or-nothing again?
She'll never see it, but she'll have the pleasure of sitting with friends sipping wine and watching him rant about the injustice.
How so? The full amount is due the moment the judgement is written into the record, and can only be staved off by a supersedeas bond or an appeals bond, for which he still has to put up money.
... and IIRC, his NY properties, or at least many/most of them, are or soon may be under the control of a ... conservator? which would suggest that a ton of money may change hands pretty much entirely out of his control or influence.
Losing possession of his properties comes at a bad time in the commercial real estate market, too. Fire sale forcing the sale of more of his portfolio.
Excellent point about his being forced to sell at this time. I believe most of his properties have commercial mortgages, possibly obtained (most likely fraudulently) but at quite low rates of interest and when the markets were hot.
Pandemic office and retail markets are colder than Antarctica, and interest rates are much higher.
A fire sale is really going to hurt.
Or Trump can do what Alex Jones and Rudi did. Duck into bankruptcy. An almost permanent stay on having to pay your debts and endless possibilities for delay and making your less rich creditors pay more than they’ve got or could ever hope to get. And then settle for pennies on the dollar.
The American legal system is simply not equipped to deal with rich, duplicitous assholes.
Personal bankruptcy would be pretty off brand for him though, wouldn’t it? Plus it would require the disclosure of his assets and their actual value, something he might not want to do.
And, I’m not sure how all of this works with regard to the business entities under the Trump Organization. Does the judgment affect that business or just him personally? Is any of that stuff protected from his personal bankruptcy? I thought a big part of forming a corporation is forming a separate entity which is immune to the fate of other entities.
Ahhhh, but who constructed the system...
Well, no. As I understand it, bankruptcy does NOT shield you from judgments unless the bankruptcy judge allows it, and if it's basically a dodge to get out from under a judgement -- as Rudy's evidently is -- judges tend not to allow it automatically. Otherwise it's a get-out-of-liability-free card, and while "the law is an ass," it's not THAT much of an ass.
I believe in Rudy's case, and maybe Alex Jones as well (?), he DOESN'T have that much money or anywhere near it, so there has to be some way to work it all out, even as it's acknowledged that he owes all he has except for what he's allowed to keep, and that's the point of bankruptcy court as I understand it. Rudy's gonna have to pay up as much as he can. But Trump, nuh-uh. He's got it, even if it requires liquidating property at fire-sale prices.
In both instances I’ve mentioned, and most particularly in the Alex Jones case, neither debtor has handed over a penny yet and the judges seem to be in no hurry to force either Rudi or Alex Jones to pay what they owe. Right now, Alex Jones has millions in assets, his only legitimate debts are what he owes to the Sandy Hook families, and he’s spending over $100,000 every month on himself. All of which is evidently fine with the bankruptcy judge.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64644080
He’s made a lowball offer to the families because he knows they are regular people with limited resources. And he’s made a joke out of the legal system which has zero interest in holding him accountable.
If he does, he'd have to announce it immediately. Carroll's lawyers will absolutely file liens against Trump. If he does not, he will have extreme difficulty discharging that debt, and anyway a bankruptcy claim will be contested and he will have to show a need to declare bankruptcy.
A little quirk: He has to choose between appealing the verdict (and therefore put up the full amount owed to get an appeals bond) or declaring bankruptcy. Which do you think he'll do?
Trump's lawyers in his *other* NY civil case just spent a ton of time arguing how rich and wealthy he was as part of their defense that even if there was fraud, nobody got hurt.
It's going to be hard to spin that into "I'm bankrupt" (but for the orange one, nothing is impossible)
Justice delayed is justice denied.
There should be some way to confiscate the money three seconds after the verdict. Also, houses should not be out of the court's reach.
That, at least, is my opinion, but I'm aware that my natural condition is to want to see cities burning, and so I ask myself, reasonably, might there be some perfectly good reason to not do this? I don't know what it might be, but I'd like another opinion.
In some jurisdictions, one house is exempt from seizure to satisfy a judgment. Trump owns multiple houses, plus a whole bunch of other properties. As an immediate measure, Carroll's judgment can be registered against the titles to all those properties just like a mortgage. As with a defaulted mortgage, it may take a little while to actually sell the property and get the money, but registration assures the property can't be sold or remortgaged without paying the judgment.
it'd be entertaining to see her go after his assets
"E Jean Carroll Tower" and "E Force 1" have a nice ring to them
taking away his toys would kill the man
She ought to get them at the lowest value he's reported them.
yeah, force him to admit he lies on his tax filings
Take the tower, unload the jet. Buildings by and large age better than aircraft.
He put $5 million with the court to appeal the first one. He has property in NY that can be attached.
As such, wouldn't it be grand if more people were to step up and sue Trump for defamation? It goes against his being to prevent his downward spiral.
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Idiot. You get a better return suing Donald Trump.
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Maybe there's somewhere better this blog can go.
They should just give her Mar-a-Lago, although that would still be short of what he owed.
Mar-a-Lago is worth a billion dollars, remember? That ought to cover Carroll's $83.3 million with some left over. /s
No one knows how much debt is attached to the property. Or any of his other properties. Though we may soon find out, by seeing how many of his properties he has to sell to come up with the $80M.
If Trump does have to come up with the money, his campaign contributors are going to have to open their wallets wider. Because he certainly isn't going to pay that judgement willingly himself.
After all, he's been treated very unfairly. And he will keep telling us that, all the way to the grave.
Yeah, I imagine that his nitwit followers will end up paying the bill for him. I'm okay with that.
????????????????????
That was my first thought. If he got 70 million votes in 2020, all he needs is for each of them to donate $1.19. I bet he could manage that in a week.
It should have been 12 times that amount -- a cool billion. Or let's get creative: $83 million to E. Jean Carroll and $917 million to the DNC.
There are lots of judgment debtors that won't pay willingly. They pay nonetheless.
There was a scenario offered on LGM in which Trump basically tells the RNC that they need to pay his legal bills or he will start his own political party, and their response is to ask if he wants (a) separate checks or (b) just cash in hand.
Melania carefully considering her next move, I would guess. Stay or sue?
I read that she signed a prenup with Trump which assured her of getting $1M if she stayed with him for ten years.
Looks like suing him is the better option.
Just $1 million. As celebrity pre-nups go, particularly with someone as supposedly rich as Trump, that's chump change. Maybe a couple of zeros missing?
At the time it was signed she was a nobody, he could tell her "you don't sign that I will take the next one" (and actually mean it).
All rumor and conjecture, but I thought she renegotiated a new package while lingering in Manhattan for half a year after he was in DC.
Could this become a monthly episode? $83M not enough for you to STFU? Let's try again...I'll take Mar a Lago for $200M. I think his lawyers should be asking for up front payments.
All of Trump's lawyers know they are not getting paid at this point. They can only be doing it for the publicity and the possibility of making money as Fox talking heads in the future.
My guess is that all of them except for possibly Habba were probably paid big retainers in cash money. I think she’s all that he’s got left on the defamation case because nobody in his right mind would left someone with so little experience and skill defend a big case like this one.
I believe most, if not all, of his legal expenses are currently being covered by his PAC. In other words, OPM.
Office of Personnel Management?
And if he keeps right on libeling her?
Even if his family doesn't intervene and have him declared incompetent, can't a court do that on it's own?
Wouldn't it be at least reasonable to order a psychiatric evaluation if he keeps it up?
A theoretical question: suppose somebody in the Trump-Kushner family did have the Defendant declared incompetent?
Could he remain on the ballot?
If still allowed to vote, probably yes. And, as a Florida Man, DeSatan could easily declare him "a qualified elector" even if mental incompetence would otherwise have barred him from the franchise.
Can you be an Elector in your own election?
That would be entertainingly awful.
And if he loses he can run for governor of Florida.
Fuck that guy.
I really thought it was going to be Stormy. But any Valkyrie in a storm, amiright?
Kevin, two points, 2 questions:
Do the anti "defamation" laws that this verdict is based on----are they not unconstitutional?
There are free speech and civil liberties (rights of the accused) concerns here:
1. Does not someone accused of rape have the right to defend themselves publicly? What could be more defamatory than to be accused of being a rapist? And, if you call your accuser a 'wackjob' is that defamation? It sounds like a general insult rather than defamation.
An example of defamation would be to accuse someone of being a pedophile or a murderer.
I believe there absolutely are constitutional concerns here.
Also, a civil trial judgment should not be determinative.
There are absolutely constitutional concerns here, which is why most defamation claims are DOA. But the first ammendment is not without narrow exceptions.
These concerns were addressed to the court's satisfaction
> Does not someone accused of rape have the right to defend themselves publicly?
They do, but that doesn't mean they get a free pass if they libel someone in the process.
The First Amendment provides more protection to truthful statements than to false statements. A person accused of rape can defend himself publicly without any risk of losing a libel suit as long as he sticks to the truth. If the accusations are true, the accused would be well advised to consult a lawyer before lying in public about what happened.
> What could be more defamatory than to be accused of being a rapist?
Trump said he would to sue E. Jean Carroll for libel, but he didn't follow through. If he had, he would have lost, because Carroll has a First Amendment right to make true statements about Trump no matter how much the truth damages Trump's reputation. Instead, Carroll sued Trump, and won, because the First Amendment affords only limited protection to lies.
Trump was sued by E. Jean Carroll once before, months ago. The conclusion of that trial was that a jury found that Trump indisputably sexually assaulted Carroll, then defamed her by calling her a liar when she spoke and wrote about that assault. Trump was fully represented by legal counsel at that first trial (although he never personally bothered to show up for it). During that trial he had every right to verbally defend himself from her accusations, and his legal team working on his behalf did just that. At the end, however, the jury found that Trump lied when he claimed it never happened; his every denial was a lie; and that his lies defamed Ms. Carroll causing her significant or irreparable harm.
So, no, in this most recent trial he did NOT have a right to defend himself by denying that he sexually assaulted her as that had already been established as a fact by the previous jury. This most recent lawsuit was only about him continuing to defame her after that previous lawsuit: whether he actually did defame her again (repeatedly, as it happened) and if so what his penalty should be ($85 million, as it happens).
Agreed. This case was filed in 2020, but moved very slowly because the courts had to decide whether Trump's June 2019 statements were protected by Presidential immunity. A second case, based on statements that Trump made after he left office, went to trial first even though it was filed later. The jury in that second case determined that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll, and that result applies to both cases.
The verdict in this case only covered damages for statements made in June 2019, but I believe that statements Trump made after the verdict in the second case were admitted into evidence, and may have convinced the jury that a really large punitive damages award would be required to dissuade Trump from continuing to defame Carroll in the future.
link to verdict: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790.280.0.pdf
When a lawyer who practices in this specific area, say someone like Popehat, says this is a "well-developed" area of the law what he means is that many, many defendants have raised a wide range of these free-speech and other constitutional and legal concerns over many years and as a result there are well-defined and well-understood parameters for what kinds of speech are protected and what kinds are not, as @kennethalmquist describes above (and which I didn't see until after I posted).
These kinds of parameters will be understood by lawyers who practice in the field and judges who try those kinds of cases (and who review them on appeal), but they might not be so obvious to laymen like me (and trump, surely the one similar thing about us). Like trump, I'd be well-advised to listen to a good lawyer about what I can say if I was ever in that kind of situation.
The fact that Carroll's cases were civil suits means that trump wasn't charged by the state or the feds with a crime, but that he was accused by her of speaking in ways that harmed her, which is one of the recognized limits on free speech. One way she said he harmed her was by denying, in strongly insulting terms, that he'd assaulted her (or even knew her). In other words, that she was lying, made it all up, was looking for fame, was a lying liar, etc etc.
So one question that had to be addressed was, did the jury think he assaulted her, or not? That was decided in the first trial, and he had ample chance to dispute the accuracy of her statement. He did dispute it, and the jury decided that for civil purposes, which is basically "more likely than not," he did assault her back in the day. "More likely than not," the civil standard, is less exacting than for criminal charges, mainly because the stakes are dollars, rather than personal freedom and a lifelong criminal record and all that.
In this most recent trial, the question of fact-- was it more likely than not that he'd assaulted her-- had already been settled at the first trial, so it didn't need to be gone over again, because that one event was what all the hoohah has been about; that, and then the repeated bad-mouthing of her about it on separate occasions.
Is a civil trial determinative? Well yes, if we're talking about whether what he said about her and about what she'd claimed amounted to defaming her. It's absolutely not determinative if we're talking about whether trump committed the *crime* of rape or sexual assault. That's a whole different kettle of fish with different standards of proof and it makes a big difference legally. How much difference it makes in our own heads is up to us.
It's like with OJ. He wasn't convicted-- found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt-- for murdering Nicole and Ron Goldman, but he was found civilly responsible for the two deaths and hit with big fines for them (when he was later jailed, it was for something else entirely). Legally there was a big difference for him between the two kinds of responsibility.
Defending yourself =/= calling your accuser a deranged, lying slut who's "not your type" (i.e. too ugly to rape). The response of a normal person would be to have their lawyer issue the following statement: "The accusations made against my client are categorically false and we are planning legal action to clear his name." Trump was free to take Carroll to court to prove she was lying, but he couldn't because they knew she would come with receipts. Instead, he chose to call her a liar and a bunch of other stuff clearly designed to damage her reputation and intimidate her, which isn't speech covered by the 1A -- it's defamation. And so it was Trump who got his ass sued and here we are. Plus he was defended by America's certified Worst Trial Lawyer in History™, which didn't help.
jte21 (and Altoid up above), both of you posted while I was writing my own reply upthread here. So I only just saw what you had to say. And I just wanted to give both of you a thumb's up because you both say what I was trying to say, only way better.
Rog, old boy, you are assuming that there is no such thing as "reality" and that only the sounds Americans make are relevant. There's a big difference between "defending yourself" and "making up vicious lies told with gutter language" against someone who is just describing what YOU ACTUALLY DID.
I’d rather he were dead.
Apropos of the Trump judgment, his good buddy Vince McMahon has just stepped down (again) as head of the WWE after a former employee sued him over a variety of sex crimes. Funny how these guys all seem to find each other...
At least McMahon is smart enough to hire lawyers who issued a statement on his behalf saying the allegations are completely false and he intends to defend himself in court -- instead of stupidly and repeatedly slandering the plaintiff in front of television cameras.
So disappointed to see what a wuss McMahon turns out to be-- why isn't he standing up and slandering the accuser like a real man?
Kevin, the previous judgment wasn’t $5 million for defamation, it was a total of that amount for sexual abuse AND defamation. The AP said: The jury awarded Carroll $2 million for Trump’s sexual abuse and $20,000 in punitive damages. For defamation, jurors awarded $1 million for Trump’s October statement, another $1.7 million for harm to Carroll’s reputation and $280,000 in punitive damages.
It’s important to get this right - courts haven’t just found that Trump defamed Carroll, a court outright find him liable for sexual abuse.