Donald Trump’s lawyers are like cockroaches, when his empire is completely finished, they’ll be the only ones left and still thriving in the ruins. That’s what we’ve heard about atomic war, the cockroaches will be our descendants, and they can keep Trump’s lawyers company. Maybe the two species can interbreed. Today Trump instructed his legal team to sue ABC News and George Stephanopolous for having the gall to refer to Trump as a “rapist” when in fact a federal judge called him that and it’s been entered into the Congressional Record. Why is he squandering money like this?
Donald Trump is broke. He has no access to cash. He's been posting rants all morning. The kids won't have an inheritance. No billionaires are coming to his rescue. He is desperate; the family is desperate. And such desperation is a security risk.
— Juliette Kayyem (@juliettekayyem) March 19, 2024
All that is absolutely true. So why sue ABC News, which is an exercise in futility? New York Times:
Former President Donald J. Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against ABC News on Monday, arguing that the anchor George Stephanopoulos had harmed his reputation by saying multiple times on-air that Mr. Trump had been found liable for raping the writer E. Jean Carroll.
A jury in a Manhattan civil case last year found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Ms. Carroll, but did not find the former president liable for rape. The judge, however, later clarified that because of New York’s narrow legal definition of “rape,” the jury’s finding did not mean that Ms. Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Mr. Stephanopoulos, who was named as a co-defendant, said Mr. Trump was found liable for rape during a contentious interview on March 10 with Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina. During the interview, Mr. Stephanopoulos asked Ms. Mace, who has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager, why she continued to support Mr. Trump in light of the outcome of the civil case.
Two thoughts: 1. Trump has sued CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post for defamation and those suits have been dismissed. 2. I’m wondering, since Nancy Mace got this ball rolling, if that’s any indication that he might be considering her as a VP candidate. That would be some ticket, Trump/Mace, “the most toxic combo politics has ever seen.” Although personally I think the real howler would be if he put Lauren Boebert on his ticket. Not that I have heard that she’s a candidate, I just can’t think of anybody more wildly unsuited. Imagine it, the person one heartbeat away from the presidency is a high school dropout who gropes guys in theaters. That is Idiocracy come straight off the silver screen and into life.
“The theory of Trump’s complaint here is that, since the jury in Carroll II, the case tried last year, unanimously found that Trump forcibly and without consent penetrated Carroll’s vagina with his fingers and not his penis, and since this constituted sexual assault and not rape as defined by the New York Penal Code, Stephanopoulos libeled him by saying he had been held liable for ‘rape,’ even though the judge in the Carroll case has held multiple times since the verdict that in common parlance (and the law of most other jurisdictions) forcible digital penetration is rape,” Conway writes.
“In other words, Trump is suing Stephanopoulos and ABC because Stephanopoulos repeated what a federal district judge has said repeatedly in written opinions.”
“By bringing this lawsuit, Trump will only bring more public attention to what he did to Carroll. And he and his lawyers may very well be—in fact, ought to be—sanctioned,” Conway adds, concluding: “Another brilliant stable-genius move. Trump is not only a rapist, he’s a nut job, and a very, very dumb one at that.”
As stated, maybe Trump’s motivation is to bring Mace on board and they both can go on about how they’re victimized. Mace can use the VP slot. She may be finished in the summer if her former chief of staff is successful in primarying her. What a great group of politicos MAGA is. As Anthony Scaramucci said, “The fish rots from the head done.”
Doesn’t he already owe enough to attorneys? I guess since he presumably doesn’t intend to pay any of them anyway, he must figure ‘what the hell’? Go for it. He really belongs in a facility where he can be locked away for his (and our) own good. Tired of watching him trundle across this country, like a Godzilla monster, leaving a trail of destruction behind him. Tired of his noise and blather, his loathsome face and the endless lies. Let us be done with this useless piece of Putin garbage once and for all.
this final trumpty tour is really something. it’s the “I’m going to repeatedly remind you of everything you already know is bad about me” tour.
It’s like a perverse ‘Vote Democrat’ campaign.
Look what the alternative is.
Any hints that the original ludicrous female VP choice by a Repugnican would-be-president is lurking in the wings, ready willing & able to offer herself as an “elder stateswoman” to all these much younger MAGAt crazy ladies? Where’s Sarah Palin when her party needs her?
Ms. Kayyem xits the family is desperate. I’m betting Jar-jar and the princess aren’t…unless they’ve burned through the cash they got from MBS and if daddy or his “attorney” think they should front the $454 M, it kind of indicates they haven’t spent it all. If they have anything even approaching the sense given to a goose, they will tell daddy to pack sand.
Trump thinks that unless his Part A is inserted into Slot B, it doesn’t count. Sticking his fingers into Slot B without the consent of the owner of that Slot, doesn’t count as a serious crime, a mere flirtation,really, nothing bad.
And the Rs complained when Clinton got consensual blowjob from.a legal adult. Clinton said,”I didn’t have sex with that woman.” By GOP standards, he told the truth, since Presidential Part A didn’t get into Slot B, just her mouth (Slot C?).
Throw that at Trump often and loud pointing out CONSENT is the issue, not which parts went where. Monica,a cute little college grad, CONSENTED which makes it tawdry and wrong. Adultery isn’t generally crime and even states that may still have laws on the books seldom prosecute it. The military does,,and it isn’t call that rare.
But rape and other forms of nonconsensual sex ARE crimes, even if the statute of limitations has run out. A civil defamation suit is the other way it can be tried,,and he was found guilty of sexual assault for lying and calling her names.