Dem
51
GOP
49
In the first E. Jean Carroll trial, Donald Trump did not bother to show up, and he got popped for $5 million. In the second E. Jean Carroll trial, by contrast, Trump was omnipresent. And, as a consequence, he got a very different result. Not different in the way he wanted, however, as this time he got popped for nearly 20 times as much: $18.3 million in compensatory damages and $65 million in punitive damages, for a total of $83.3 million in damages.
Politically, perhaps Trump achieved what he wanted in this trial, in that his performative shenanigans certainly communicated to the base that he is too big and strong to be worried about silly things like laws, judges and sexual assault victims. On the other hand, he already has the votes of people who are impressed by this sort of behavior. What he was really gunning for was their money. And there is no way on God's green Earth that he's ever going to raise $83.3 million off of this.
Legally, meanwhile, the Trump defense was the biggest train wreck since, well, Rudy Giuliani's defamation suit. Let us recall that the central goal of Carroll's lawyers was to demonstrate to the jury that Trump is the kind of man who would knowingly say things that he knew to be untrue, and that were intended to do harm to another person's reputation. And whatever the central goal of Trump's lawyers was, the main effect of their defense, and in particular their client's behavior, was to show the jury that Carroll's lawyers were right on the mark with their argument. Put more simply, if the opposition argues that you're e jerk, and then you get up on the stand and act like a jerk, the jury is likely to ponder the matter and conclude that... you're a jerk. In this case, the jury needed only 3 hours to both reach its conclusion and to decide exactly how much money was called for.
How did the jury come up with a weird number like $83.3 million and so fast? If we had to guess, we would imagine that first, they spent some time electing a foreperson. Then they went around the room asking each person: Should we award compensatory damages or not? After everyone agreed to award compensatory damages, they went around asking everyone to name a number. All the numbers were different. The foreperson then said: "None of us want to hang around here all night, so why don't we just average all the numbers?" Everyone shook his or her head in agreement. Then the foreperson got out a smartphone and fired up a calculator app. Another round with numbers and out came an average. Then they did it again with punitive damages, this time with an agreement to round it to the nearest $5 million. Again, this is just a guess, but we think it's a pretty good one.
Here is what Trump posted to "Truth" Social after the jury kicked him in the teeth. Read carefully, and see if you notice what is missing:
Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!
He followed with this, which is missing the same core element:
There is no longer Justice in America. Our Judicial System is Broken and Unfair!
He may be steaming, and he may still be attacking the legal system, and he may still be whining about how he's a victim of the deep state, but what he's not doing anymore is attacking E. Jean Carroll. It would seem that the strongman's muscles have withered, and maybe he's not more powerful than the law after all.
Trump has already promised to appeal, of course. However, he already put $5.5 million into an escrow account while appealing the first verdict, and he's going to have to put some portion of the $83.3 million (very possibly, that "portion" could be 100% of it) into a second escrow account. He reportedly has that kind of liquidity, but both his cash and the assets he might use to secure a bond could soon be encumbered, when the NEXT multimillion dollar verdict comes down, very possibly this week.
This result also bodes ill for Trump's upcoming criminal trials. There will be much less tolerance for performative nonsense, while the consequences of a loss (i.e., loss of freedom) are rather more dire. And, thus far, he has failed to land a single "MAGA juror." It's entirely possible that one or more of the jurors in the two Carroll trials was a Trumper, but if so, they weren't willing to put their politics ahead of their job as a juror. When it comes to the Washington case, which is theoretically next up on the Trump docket, he's not likely to change his luck on this front.
Meanwhile, note that one of the most sordid and shameful storylines of Trump's career has come full circle. Remember the video that came to light in which Trump said:
Yeah, that's her. With the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab 'em by the pu**y. You can do anything.
This reads like a script for exactly what he did to Carroll, excepting one thing. And that one thing is that yesterday, for the second time, a jury said: "No, actually, you CAN'T do anything." (Z)