Richard offers an addendum to his discussion of the incoherent E. Jean Carroll v. Trump case. Did the jury call Carroll a liar by concluding that, more likely than not, she was not raped? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit radixjournal.substack.com/subscribe
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| Hey everyone, this is Richard, and welcome back to my journal. | |
| Today I'm going to add an addendum to the journal entry I posted last night on E. Jean Carroll and her claims of defamation and sexual misconduct against President Donald Trump. | |
| I've rethought some things here and there, and I just wanted to add this. | |
| Secondly, we have news. | |
| The jury did not need to deliberate for very long. | |
| They went away to talk. | |
| They came back rather quickly with a verdict. | |
| It's a unanimous verdict. | |
| It's also a mixed verdict. | |
| E. Jean Carroll was claiming that Donald Trump engaged in rape. | |
| She's also claiming that Donald Trump Engaged in sexual misconduct. | |
| Assault. | |
| And she's claiming that he defamed her on Truth Social by saying something to the effect, you know, this is a massive hoax. | |
| And she is an inveterate liar. | |
| It's all part of the witch hunt. | |
| So that was apparently a defamation. | |
| And according to E.G. and Carol, she got her life back via this verdict. | |
| I spoke with the group about this on our members-only group podcast, you could say. | |
| So if you weren't subscribed, I would recommend that you do that. | |
| And I actually did talk through this with someone who has a legal mind, and I think I kind of nuanced my views on it a little bit. | |
| I obviously stand behind what I said. | |
| But 24 hours ago. | |
| But I just wanted to add a little more nuance. | |
| I was stressing last night that this whole defamation case probably shouldn't see the light of day in the sense that you are mixing different thresholds. | |
| So the threshold for a crime, rape and sexual assault are obviously crimes, is beyond a reasonable doubt. | |
| But then we're moving. | |
| This is a civil trial. | |
| It's not a criminal trial. | |
| And in such a trial, the threshold is more likely than not. | |
| So I did feel like this was rather contradictory. | |
| Now, my interlocutor did mention something that is very important. | |
| That is that there can be... | |
| In civil trials involving what would seem to be a criminal matter, even if that person was not put forward in a criminal trial, and even if he were found not guilty. | |
| And in fact, there's an extremely famous example, and that is the O.J. Simpson trial. | |
| So, as I'm sure you know, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty in what I... | |
| I think most everyone feels to be a miscarriage of justice back in the 1990s. | |
| He was found liable for wrongful death in a civil trial, and I think that decision might have led to a lot of his undoing. | |
| Although, you know, whatever you want to say about O.J., he seems to be back on his feet, putting forth Twitter videos, making bold. | |
| Inaccurate predictions on NFL football. | |
| It's a rather surreal experience watching those. | |
| But anyway, the whole point is that he was found not guilty, and a civil trial proceeded. | |
| So perhaps I was kind of overdoing it in stressing that there's this kind of inherent contradiction. | |
| I still do think there are contradictions to this. | |
| I mean, it is very obvious that this is... | |
| It involves Roberta Kaplan. | |
| I mean, I don't really need to go on. | |
| That being said, I do believe E. Jean Carroll, when she claims that something happened, I do think that that is most likely correct. | |
| So, in New York, rape is defined by inserting the penis in a non-consensual manner. | |
| That is rape. | |
| Now, there are other forms of sexual misconduct, obviously assaults and harassment and all those kinds of things. | |
| So the jury decided that more likely than not, Donald Trump did not rape E. Jean Carroll. | |
| And I think that they were probably on to something with that. | |
| One of the reasons that I do think that E. Jean Carroll is telling the truth is the scenario that she recounted in her memoir just seems very plausible. | |
| I can see something like this happening. | |
| Donald Trump is a star, you know, in his estimation. | |
| He's hanging out. | |
| At some fancy department store, he sees this pretty girl, one thing leads to another, and Donald Trump acts like Donald Trump. | |
| So it seems plausible. | |
| She didn't come up with some hair-raising scenario that is just a bit too much to be believed, particularly due to the fact that she did not make a criminal complaint when it happened. | |
| Now, she did talk to two friends whom this happened to. | |
| She did talk to two friends, and they corroborated her story, so there's that. | |
| But she described a scenario that just simply seems plausible. | |
| But the jury didn't believe her that she was raped, and she did claim... | |
| And thus, when Donald Trump says this was a, you know, massive hoax and con job and things like that, couldn't you say that in a way he's right? | |
| I mean, the jury, or couldn't you say that the jury in a way agrees with him? | |
| They are basically calling E. Jean Carroll a liar. | |
| They are saying that, no, it's not even beyond a reasonable doubt. | |
| It's more likely than not, you were not raped, and yet you are claiming to have been raped, and we don't believe you. | |
| You could say that. | |
| I do think that there remain inherent contradictions. | |
| Now, the legal person who I spoke to also mentioned something important with regard to the OJ situation, and that is that claims against intentionality don't happen very often. | |
| These kinds of things, these civil trials are mostly going to happen regarding wrongful death or injury or whatever, when in effect they're covered by insurance. | |
| So, you know, if someone dies at the factory where he works, there's obviously not an intent to kill him. | |
| It's not that kind of criminality. | |
| But there are insurance programs that can cover this so that there is some restitution, the family or something is made whole. | |
| Now, there obviously can be no rape insurance for the perpetrator. | |
| In the sense of, you know, maybe Andrew Tate would want to take out such a program, who knows? | |
| So it just becomes less likely that someone's going to pay, and that's just the beginning of kind of the difficulties of situations like this. | |
| So this kind of intentional liability and defamation... | |
| This strikes me as quite novel. | |
| And I don't think that... | |
| And to be honest, I really don't think it should hold up. | |
| Obviously, Trump's going to appeal. | |
| He has a lawyer who's used to this kind of stuff. | |
| The whole thing just strikes me as so convoluted that I find it a little bit difficult to take seriously. | |
| Also, I think I mentioned last night that this sets a precedent and it can be used in other different cases. | |
| It can be used against people who aren't as wealthy and powerful as Donald Trump. | |
| It does set a precedent. | |
| But I'm not sure it would be because I think this was a fairly unique case that was constructed. | |
| It was a novel case constructed by Roberta Kaplan, among others. | |
| And it's just so obviously politically motivated that I'm not sure it's going to really be tried again. | |
| This is the way of using The court system as opposed to the ballot box or using the court system as a way of punishing a political opponent. |