Appeals court upholds $5 million verdict against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation of E. Jean Carroll

“[T]he jury could reasonably infer … that Mr. Trump engaged in similar conduct with other women,” the panel wrote in a 77-page opinion.

The decision is a significant legal setback as Trump prepares for his inauguration next month.

By Kyle Cheney 12/30/2024 11:22 AM EST

A federal appeals court has upheld a jury’s $5 million civil verdict against Donald Trump for sexual abuse and defamation claims brought by the writer E. Jean Carroll.

A three-judge panel ruled unanimously Monday thatthe trial judge did not violate Trump’s rights when he allowed Carroll to present evidence suggesting Trump had committed other sexual assaults. That evidence included Trump’s comments on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape as well as testimony from other two other women who accused Trump of sexual assault.

“[T]he jury could reasonably infer… that Mr. Trump engaged in similar conduct with other women — a pattern of abrupt, nonconsensual, and physical advances on women he barely knew,” the panel wrote in a 77-page opinion. (Holy Shit, how can they possibly do that, it's not reasonable at all. That sounds stupid and sexist against men. They let the women decide. he whole thing was based on hearsay or a story made up, since when do men have to deal with this, when there is no police, doctor or any record it happened? Only NY or DC would let this happen and maybe CA)

The judges ruling on the matter wereObama appointeesDenny Chin and Susan Carney, as well as Biden appointee Myrna Perez. (How much do these judges get for violating every law imaginable?)

It’s a significant legal setback — though one that was foreseeable — as Trump prepares for his inauguration next month. Trump may appeal the ruling to the full bench of the Manhattan-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals or to the Supreme Court. Aides indicated he would continue to appeal what spokesman Steven Cheung deemed the “Democrat-funded Carroll Hoax.”

Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, hailed the “careful” ruling. “E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision,” Kaplan said in a statement.

The ruling comes on the heels of a legal victory for the president-elect in a related defamation case that Trump brought against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos, who said on the air that the civil jury found Trump had raped Carroll. ABC settled that case and agreed to pay $15 million to Trump’s presidential library.

Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s and sued him for civil damages.In May 2023, a federal jury did not find Trump liable for rape but did find him liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and it ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million.

A separate jury earlier this year ordered Trump to pay her $83.3 million for a different defamation claim. Trump is appealing that verdict as well.

Both defamation claims arose from statements that Trump made about Carroll in which he denied her account of rape and called her a liar.

The “Access Hollywood” tape, in which Trump was captured on camera in 2005 talking about using his star status to kiss and grope women without permission, has haunted Trump since 2016, when it nearly ended his nascent career as a presidential candidate weeks before the presidential election.

Though it ultimately proved not to be enough to end his candidacy, it has remained a key piece of evidence in some of the legal proceedings he’s faced ever since.

“We conclude that the Access Hollywood tape described conduct that was sufficiently similar in material respects to the conduct alleged by Ms. Carroll (and Ms. Leeds and Ms. Stoynoff) to show the existence of a pattern,” the judges ruled, referring to Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, the two other women who were allowed to testify that Trump assaulted them.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/30/appeals-court-upholds-verdict-against-trump-in-e-jean-carroll-sexual-abuse-case-00196116

The Unluckiness of Jimmy Carter1/3 or 4+

The 39th president, who died yesterday aged 100, was a good man dealt a bad hand.

By Joe Nocera 2.30.24

The conventional wisdom about Jimmy Carter, who died yesterday at the age of 100, is that he had a lousy presidency and a model post-presidency. There is some truth to that. During his four years in the White House, which began in 1977, inflation roared like it hadn’t in decades. In 1979, Iran took 53 American diplomats and citizens hostage—and when Carter tried a daring rescue mission, one of the helicopters crashed, killing eight American servicemen.

During the final 1980 presidential debate, Ronald Reagan closed his arguments by asking, “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” Reagan won the election by a landslide.

Yet even Carter’s harshest critics had to admire how he spent his years out of office: He worked with the nonprofit Habitat for Humanity to build badly-needed housing. He started a center that worked to eradicate disease and promote democracy—for which he won a Nobel Prize in 2002. And every Sunday he taught Bible study in Plains, Georgia, where he lived for much of his life.

What the conventional wisdom forgets is that while the country’s economic woes did Carter in, he also brokered peace between Egypt and Israel, and was the first president to emphasize “human rights.” And with his presidency coming just a few years after the Watergate scandal, his integrity was something the country badly needed to see.

James Fallows, who had been his chief speechwriter for the first two years of his presidency, wrote in this fine 2023 reminiscence that, in many ways, Carter was simply unlucky. Having lived through his presidency, that strikes me as right. So does Fallows’s summation of the man: “disciplined, funny, enormously intelligent, and deeply spiritual.”

https://www.thefp.com/p/jimmy-carter-death-100-joe-nocera

(I’m only posting it so you can read the hilarious comments about the article and authorPS Carter created the SES, and all the agencies we have to get rid of because there's nothing they do that is working, a waste of money by a praised non effective President. He introduced the DS on steroids.)

Comments

1. What a simplistic apology for one the most foolish presidents in American history. The Iranians didn't just take American diplomats hostage: Carter actively subverted an American ally, the Shah, in favor of a Dark Ages theocrat that hated America. Jimmy telling Americans to turn down the thermostat and wear sweaters was not a winning strategy. And he created the absolute most destructive and wasteful giant bureaucracy: The Dept of Education.Carter will go down in history as a little man not up for the job of president.

2. Obviously Joe Nocera is a leftwing partisan hack. Carter was an utterly incompetent and irresponsible president who created problems for the US. Carter gave away the Panama Canal, which was built by and paid for by the US. The Canal was vitally important to US trade and security interests. Carter bungled America’s Iran policy. Carter promised the Shah safety in the US but then broke that promise after the Shah arrived in the US. Carter’s policy pronouncement to his staff was, “F*** the Shah.” Then Carter banned the Marines guarding the US Embassy from having ammunition in their guns or nightsticks. They were only allowed to use tear gas. The Embassy was taken. Carter’s failed economic and budget policies resulted in a long period of stagflation. The Carter presidency was a disaster.

3. What a joke. He wasn't "unlucky." He was a terrible president following ridiculous left-wing policies that the Democrats still embrace today. It took years to dig out from under his failed presidency. If he was just "unlucky," why did the Iranians release the hostages immediately when Reagan became president? Because Carter was weak and stupid, that's why.

4. I am sorry to hear of his passing and will mourn him as I would any US president. But he was a bad president and not because of bad luck. He was a misguided man who helped Iran turn into a brutal theocracy, he was unable to free the US hostages in Iran, domestically he presided over a disastrous economy that took years to overcome and destroyed the country's optimism (remember the 'national malaise' speech). And as a Jew I cannot forget of forgive his book which carelessly tied Israel to the concept of apartheid, an issue we are still dealing with today.

5. He was a good but foolish man, a horrible president and only a leftwing apologist like Joe Nocera would try to make an excuse for him. Nocera needs to stop writing for you guys, he is way too partisan. Send him back to the NYT if need be but he damages your objectivity badly….

>>22257367

2/3

1. We elect leaders who possess the experience, strength, wisdom and humility to successfully deal with the “unlucky” events that come their way. Regrettably, Carter wasn’t up to the job.

2. Mr. Nocera must have been living in an alternative universe version of the USA from me.I was an officer in the USMC throughout those unfortunate 4 yearsand, national defense-wise, without going on a rant, the situation in terms of readiness, training, equipment, etc., was ugly. Things changed almost immediately after Reagan's inauguration.

8.He lived long enough to become the second worst US president. Biden outdid him.

1. That is like calling Biden failed presidency, because of bad luck , really LOL stuff . Joe Nocera is a leftwing partisan hack, and thus this BS. Carter like most Dems, just had this stupid issue with energy prices as Biden has had which causes huge inflation in all areas of economy . I remember sitting in gas lines for hours with Carter as president . Yes he was a good man that was just a bit stupid in following the Dems polices again and again.

2. I completely disagree that Carter was a good man.

3. I urge you to read this piece by Michael Oren, an Israeli-American historian and former Israeli ambassador to the U.S.: https://claritywithmichaeloren.substack.com/p/jimmy-carter-a-jewish-tragedy?publication_id=1942729&post_id=153794670&isFreemail=true&r=y3hiw&triedRedirect=true

4. Jimmy Carterwas deeply antisemiticand hated Israel. I thought that kind of thing was verboten around here, Joe?

13.I was against our involvement in Vietnam. The more I have read over the ensuing 50+ years the more I realize my position was correct. About the only good thing I remember about Carter is that he pardoned those who avoided the draft. I lost several close friends in that war and am happy others avoided the draft by leaving. We were duped to support the war.

14.Had not Carter taken live ammunition away from the Marines guarding our Iranian embassy, we might have even avoided the hostage situation.

1. People also forget his good ole buddy, Bert Lance, nothing more than a conniving criminal, who he put in charge of OMB.

16.Jimmy, like Obama, considered himself to be smarter than everyone else, so demonstrated great stupiditybecause he found it hard to take advice. While President, he was an extreme micro manger, who, in spite of challenging world events, also kept the reservation book for the White House tennis court.That’s right, if you wanted to reserve the court, you need presidential clearance.

1. True enough. Carter was unlucky in the sense that some of the events that defined his presidency could have happened to any president.But his response to them was poor. Carter was literally kissing totalitarian Leonid Brezhnev. When he shortly thereafter invaded Afghanistan, Carter realized he had been had and began sanctions. Like Democratic Presidents who followed him, Carter read the room wrong. While he talking about the country's malaise - "there you go again" - Reagan was saying it was morning in America again. That the country elected the right leader in 1980 has been born out.

2. Good things about Jimmy Carter: He was a nice guy. He smiled a lot. He was kind. I would have liked him as my neighbor. I suspect he would have lent me tools. He did a pretty good job on the Camp David accords, although Assad quickly got assassinated. I would have enjoyed a beer with him. He lived a healthy lifestyle (100!). He seemed to be honest. He loved his wife.Now, I think I'll wait a while to comment on his presidency. KEK

3. Another good thing. His presidency led to Reagan, the best president of my lifetime.

20.Carter and Biden will both go down as two of the weakest presidents in our history. Carter was over his head and preachy. Biden was over his head and angry.Neither took responsibility for their failures, and both are feckless leaders.

21.Come on Joe. He helped the Ayatollah take power, thus destabilizing the Middle East for decades,leading to the oppression, murder and torture of hundreds of thousands of people. He was always been a dangerously naive fool of a politician. Way too quick to trust evil actors like Arafat and the leaders of Hamas. As for his life after Presidency, yes he did good. No doubt. But he also embraced Hams, literally. Let's not sugarcoat his resume.

>>22257423

3/3

1. Among many other time-tested attributes, the Jewish people have a long memory.Aid us in the manner of the ancient Persian King Cyrus, and we will remember you forever fondly. Cross us as Seleucid King Antiochus IV did, and we will curse you every Hanukkah. Our talent for remembering is particularly salient today after the death, at the age of 100, of former President Jimmy Carter. While the rest ofthe world is now hailing him as a statesman who, after his failed one-term presidency, rose to become an unstinting peacemaker, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, and a paragon of now nonexistent virtues, many Jews will have a far more ambivalent reaction. The man whose legacy could have been cherished by future Jewish generations, with streets in Jerusalem named for him and communities created in his honor, will be at best forgotten, if not reviled. That is the tragedy of Jimmy Carter, a leader who could have gone down in Jewish history as a second Truman, will be recalled, if at all, as another Bernie Sanders.

23.From a mere misreading of 242, Carter descended into a dark obsession with Israel, casting it as the source of all Middle Eastern instability and a world-leading violator of human rights. His 2004 book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, though based on half-truths and outright lies, effectively legitimized Israel’s delegitimization. Yet, while reviewing the book for the Wall Street Journal, what shocked me so profoundly was Carter’s not-so-subtle antisemitism. He lambasts secular Israelis for abandoning Jewish law and condemns national religious Jews for fulfilling it. Whether right-wing or left, Jews can do no right by Jimmy Carter. The one-time peanut farmer from Georgia who spent a lifetime repenting for his earlier racism against Blacks, conveniently forgot that the KKK also murdered Jews.

I lived through that whole time, I remember all of the accounts of how terrible Carter was. These last two comments, I had not been aware of but he did betray Israel is a really almost hateful way.