Jurors Awarded ‘Astronomical’ Amount For One Very Good Reason: Expert

Donald Trump didn’t seem to learn his lesson after he was ordered to pay $5 million last May when a jury found him liable for sexually abusing author E. Jean Carroll. Rather than clamming up, as anyone with any brains would do, he repeated the same attacks all over again on his social media platform Truth Social and elsewhere, and as a result, he’s been hit with an astonishing $83.3 million civil judgment. Trump has always acted as if the rules didn’t apply to him and this looks like another case of f*ck around and find out. And in a more sophisticated fashion, this seems to be the view of former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman, who discussed the situation on MSNBC Friday, according to Raw Story.

“it brings me back to an argument that carroll’s attorneys made during closing arguments which was this, this trial is also about something much more profound, whether the rules that apply to everyone else, to you, to me, to miss carroll, whether they also apply to donald trump, and it feels when i hear that total, $83.3 million in damages, that that was the jury’s answer in some ways to that macro question,” said anchor alicia menendez.

“absolutely, weissman agreed. “the way i look at this is the fact that you have nine jurors unanimously making this conclusion in short order is a vindication of the rule of law. it means that judge kaplan was successful in keeping those antics at bay of having the jurors do their duty and when you think about this, compare this to prior verdict” the aforementioned paltry $5 million for sexual abuse and defamation.

This comes as a real win for the MeToo movement and for women everywhere in the U.S. but it remains to be seen if Trump will learn to keep his trap shut. Nothing seems to dissuade him. Such a whopping amount ought to shut him up but I’ve been writing about him since forever and I’m skeptical. His steady stream of yammering and whipping up his supporters is why January 6 happened because this is a man who continually believes he’s above the law.

So…we’ll see. I hope Weissman is right, and he seems optimistic.

To his way of thinking this drastically higher verdict sends the signal that “if you continue to defame somebody, that $5 million judgment, if this was entirely Donald Trump’s fault and doing, it is his continued actions that led to this,” he said. “I think E. Jean Carroll has to be really pleased. It was tenacious to bring the first suit. It was tenacious to continue. Remember, people thought after the first verdict should she just stop at that point? But she was continuing to be defamed by him, and so they went forward, and i think this is a huge vindication for her, for her counsel and for, I think the MeToo movement and for the rule of law … unanimously making this finding and clearly deciding that $5 million, not enough, these are continued defamation that has to be thwarted and so this is an incredibly meaningful amount of money.”

“it’s really astronomical, and … there may very well be more to come, and you can be sure that judge kaplan is going to be overseeing the ways in which this judgment is enforced against donald trump, so that it doesn’t just become something that’s on the books and paper but there’s actually enforcement and the money is actually paid to e. Jean Carroll and her counsel,” Weissman said.

While this is a staggering amount of money, E. Jean Carroll paid a terrible price for it. I hope she feels more peace after that awful day in that New York Department store all those years ago. She carried that pain quietly for a very long time and this is a sad price far too many women carry in silent pain. Trump can complain all he likes but he’s been doing horrible things for far too long and I’m glad he’s being held accountable.  Hopefully, he’ll be accountable for all the other horrible things he’s done. Including to this country.

Sometimes payback is a real b*tch.

Here’s the clip below.