A great deal of things occurred. Here are a few of the important things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Register for the e-mail variation
E. Jean Carroll Secures Justice
It was a win for the ages.
A previous president implicated of rape and of libeling his victim by rejecting it.
The victim (though her strength, strength, and aplomb defy usage of that term) has actually now won 2 federal jury decisions in NYC in the matter worth 10s of countless dollars.
Carroll v. Trump in both its versions declared that nobody is above the law, showed that a skilled jurist can bring Trump to heel, and verified that the legal system can sternly penalize those who reject it and show impunity to break the law.
The almost $90 million in judgments versus Trump and in favor of Carroll put a great, huge, fat number on top of the underlying concepts that were safeguarded and eventually vindicated.
I signed up dissatisfaction in some quarters that Carroll’s $83.3 million decision Friday wasn’t as huge in dollar terms as last month’s $148 million judgment in DC that bankrupted Rudy Giuliani. The 2 decisions compare positively with each other and are perhaps rather constant.
Off, the Giuliani decision included 2 complainants– Georgia election employees Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss– so just dividing their decision in half (in fact, Moss won somewhat more than Freeman) leaves each with $74 million. In that rough sense Carroll won more than Freeman and Moss on a per capita basis.
Simplifying a bit, Carroll won $18.3 million in countervailing damages compared to about $36 million each for Freeman and Moss. She more than made up that distinction with her punitive damages award of $65 million, rather a bit more than the $37.5 million each for Freeman and Moss.
Jury awards are infamously hard to compare, and these remained in 2 various courts in 2 various parts of the nation, with various accuseds and claims. I was struck less by how various the decisions were than how comparable.
While the colossal dollar figures improve the schadenfreudethe genuine fulfillment remains in seeing Carroll, Freeman and Moss separately striking blows for justice versus an even more effective figure and the forces arrayed behind him. It does not constantly work that method, however it did here, and it is to their everlasting credit that they sucked it up and pursued their cases through to the end.
The Rule Of Law Applies To Everyone
E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan:
“Today was a great day for our system of justice. Today was a day that reveals that the guideline of law uses to everybody, even if you do not believe the guideline of law uses to you, it uses to you, and used today to Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/JyCr68ZdIf
— Republicans versus Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) January 27, 2024
A Fateful Introduction
You understand the story by now. E. Jean Carroll fulfilled conservative attorney and Trump opponent George Conway at a celebration at the home of Molly Jong-Fast back in 2019. That opportunity conference triggered Conway to present Carroll to lawyer Roberta Kaplan, which ultimately resulted in Carroll winning 2 libel judgments versus Trump for rejecting he raped her. Here’s Conway enjoying in the $83 million damages decision:
Relish It
- Jessica Bennett: The Audacity of E. Jean Carroll
- Joah Walsh: “If Attorney General Letitia James gets the $300 million she is looking for, all of a sudden, in between that and the 2 Carroll awards, Trump is precariously near the $400 million he has actually affirmed he has in money on hand.”
- NYT: $83 Million Verdict Renews Spotlight on Trump’s Finances
- NYT: Carroll Promises to Do ‘Something Good’ With a Fortune Won From Trump
Price estimate Of The Day
My recommendations to you is that you never ever reveal that you were on this jury and I will not state anything more about it.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplanto the jurors in the E. Jean Carroll character assassination trial
Constantly Read The Footnotes
[F]ormer federal judge Barbara Jones, the court-appointed unique screen inDonald Trump‘s New York organization scams case, simply planted a monetary bombshell that legal specialists state recommends Trump lied intentionally and consistently on his federal monetary disclosures about a significant loan that never ever existed– and might have averted taxes on $48 million in earnings.
Scalia Undercut Trump’s Disqualification Clause Defense
Roger Parloff: What Justice Scalia Thought About Whether Presidents Are “Officers of the United States”
‘The Stakes Are Too High To Do Less Than Everything’
David Rothkopf and Bernard L. Schwartz on the risk postured by Donald Trump:
Ask yourself, is that adequate to make you do more than you have done? Is that sufficient to dedicate for the next 10 months to do more than you have ever done throughout an election year? To provide more? To canvas more? To get the word out more? To assist get citizens to the surveys? To guarantee every member of your household, your buddies, your colleagues do the very same? The stakes are expensive to do less than whatever you can. The stakes are too expensive to permit this male to continue to play any function in American public life.
Our Political Religion
Heather Cox Richardson significant the 186th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s Lyceum Address, where he stated:
Let every American, every enthusiast of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never ever to break in the least specific, the laws of the nation; and never ever to endure their infraction by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the assistance of the Declaration of Independence, so to the assistance of the Constitution and Laws, let every American promise his life, his home, and his spiritual honor;– let every male bear in mind that to break the law, is to run over on the blood of his dad, and to tear the character of his own, and his kids’s liberty. Let respect for the laws, be breathed by every American mom, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap– let it be taught in schools, in academies, and in colleges; let it be composed in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;– let it be preached from the pulpit, declared in legal halls, and implemented in courts of justice. And, in other words, let it end up being thepolitical faithof the country; and let the old and the young, the abundant and the bad, the tomb and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
Keeping A Watchful Eye On Greg Abbott
University of Texas Law teacher Steve Vladeck: What Texas is (and is not) doing to defy a Supreme Court problem
[S[Sponsored]An Inside Story Of The Democratic Party At A Moment Of Great Peril
The Trucefrom reporters Hunter Walker (ofTalking Points Memoand Luppe B. Luppen, checks out the significant geological fault that specify Democratic politics today and asks huge concerns about the future of the celebration. An absorbing page-turner,The Trucecomes to grips with the threats that threaten American democracy and the complex cast of characters who are attempting to wait.
Nikki Haley Watch
- NYT: Why Nikki Haley Has So Few Friends Left in South Carolina Politics
- Koch-aligned group informs donors that it’s still backing Haley That she deals with a high climb.
- Benjy Sarlin: In the consequences of the E. Jean Carroll decision, Haley takes her Trump review further than previously by stating “I definitely rely on the jury.”
- Haley calls Trump”absolutely unhinged:
Biden Goes With ‘Loser’ Tag For Trump
Example 1:
Biden: You are the factor I’m president. You are the factor Kamala Harris is a historical vice president. You are the factor Donald Trump is a loser. And you are the factor we are going to win and beat him once again. pic.twitter.com/HOYRn9W1pA
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 28, 2024
Example 2:
Biden: Donald Trump when he was commander-in-chief declined to go to a U.S. Cemetery beyond Paris for fallen American soldiers. He described those heroes as suckers and losers. How attempt he state that! I called them patriots and heroes. The only loser I see is Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/SiFBh0DWs7
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 28, 2024
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