RadixJournal - Richard Spencer - "They Let You Do It" Addendum
Aired: 2023-05-10
Duration: 10:49


=== Trump's Verdict Revealed (02:21) ===

[00:00:01]  Hey everyone, this is Richard, and welcome back to my journal.
[00:00:04]  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.
[00:00:22]  I've rethought some things here and there, and I just wanted to add this.
[00:00:26]  Secondly, we have news.
[00:00:28]  The jury did not need to deliberate for very long.
[00:00:33]  They went away to talk.
[00:00:36]  They came back rather quickly with a verdict.
[00:00:40]  It's a unanimous verdict.
[00:00:42]  It's also a mixed verdict.
[00:00:47]  E. Jean Carroll was claiming that Donald Trump engaged in rape.
[00:00:54]  She's also claiming that Donald Trump Engaged in sexual misconduct.
[00:01:00]  Assault.
[00:01:01]  And she's claiming that he defamed her on Truth Social by saying something to the effect, you know, this is a massive hoax.
[00:01:11]  And she is an inveterate liar.
[00:01:14]  It's all part of the witch hunt.
[00:01:15]  So that was apparently a defamation.
[00:01:18]  And according to E.G. and Carol, she got her life back via this verdict.
[00:01:28]  I spoke with the group about this on our members-only group podcast, you could say.
[00:01:36]  So if you weren't subscribed, I would recommend that you do that.
[00:01:41]  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.
[00:01:52]  I obviously stand behind what I said.
[00:01:55]  But 24 hours ago.
[00:01:57]  But I just wanted to add a little more nuance.
[00:02:00]  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.

=== Civil vs. Criminal Trials (02:26) ===

[00:02:15]  So the threshold for a crime, rape and sexual assault are obviously crimes, is beyond a reasonable doubt.
[00:02:23]  But then we're moving.
[00:02:26]  This is a civil trial.
[00:02:28]  It's not a criminal trial.
[00:02:29]  And in such a trial, the threshold is more likely than not.
[00:02:35]  So I did feel like this was rather contradictory.
[00:02:39]  Now, my interlocutor did mention something that is very important.
[00:02:46]  That is that there can be...
[00:02:52]  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.
[00:03:09]  And in fact, there's an extremely famous example, and that is the O.J. Simpson trial.
[00:03:15]  So, as I'm sure you know, O.J. Simpson was found not guilty in what I...
[00:03:21]  I think most everyone feels to be a miscarriage of justice back in the 1990s.
[00:03:28]  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.
[00:03:39]  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.
[00:03:50]  Inaccurate predictions on NFL football.
[00:03:53]  It's a rather surreal experience watching those.
[00:03:55]  But anyway, the whole point is that he was found not guilty, and a civil trial proceeded.
[00:04:03]  So perhaps I was kind of overdoing it in stressing that there's this kind of inherent contradiction.
[00:04:13]  I still do think there are contradictions to this.
[00:04:16]  I mean, it is very obvious that this is...

=== Claims Against Intentionality Don't Happen Often (06:30) ===

[00:04:24]  It involves Roberta Kaplan.
[00:04:31]  I mean, I don't really need to go on.
[00:04:34]  That being said, I do believe E. Jean Carroll, when she claims that something happened, I do think that that is most likely correct.
[00:05:02]  So, in New York, rape is defined by inserting the penis in a non-consensual manner.
[00:05:13]  That is rape.
[00:05:14]  Now, there are other forms of sexual misconduct, obviously assaults and harassment and all those kinds of things.
[00:05:26]  So the jury decided that more likely than not, Donald Trump did not rape E. Jean Carroll.
[00:05:35]  And I think that they were probably on to something with that.
[00:05:43]  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.
[00:05:56]  I can see something like this happening.
[00:05:58]  Donald Trump is a star, you know, in his estimation.
[00:06:02]  He's hanging out.
[00:06:04]  At some fancy department store, he sees this pretty girl, one thing leads to another, and Donald Trump acts like Donald Trump.
[00:06:12]  So it seems plausible.
[00:06:14]  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.
[00:06:30]  Now, she did talk to two friends whom this happened to.
[00:06:37]  She did talk to two friends, and they corroborated her story, so there's that.
[00:06:50]  But she described a scenario that just simply seems plausible.
[00:06:57]  But the jury didn't believe her that she was raped, and she did claim...
[00:07:04]  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?
[00:07:21]  I mean, the jury, or couldn't you say that the jury in a way agrees with him?
[00:07:26]  They are basically calling E. Jean Carroll a liar.
[00:07:31]  They are saying that, no, it's not even beyond a reasonable doubt.
[00:07:36]  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.
[00:07:44]  You could say that.
[00:07:45]  I do think that there remain inherent contradictions.
[00:07:51]  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.
[00:08:09]  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.
[00:08:20]  So, you know, if someone dies at the factory where he works, there's obviously not an intent to kill him.
[00:08:30]  It's not that kind of criminality.
[00:08:33]  But there are insurance programs that can cover this so that there is some restitution, the family or something is made whole.
[00:08:44]  Now, there obviously can be no rape insurance for the perpetrator.
[00:08:49]  In the sense of, you know, maybe Andrew Tate would want to take out such a program, who knows?
[00:08:56]  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.
[00:09:08]  So this kind of intentional liability and defamation...
[00:09:17]  This strikes me as quite novel.
[00:09:22]  And I don't think that...
[00:09:26]  And to be honest, I really don't think it should hold up.
[00:09:33]  Obviously, Trump's going to appeal.
[00:09:35]  He has a lawyer who's used to this kind of stuff.
[00:09:42]  The whole thing just strikes me as so convoluted that I find it a little bit difficult to take seriously.
[00:09:52]  Also, I think I mentioned last night that this sets a precedent and it can be used in other different cases.
[00:10:01]  It can be used against people who aren't as wealthy and powerful as Donald Trump.
[00:10:08]  It does set a precedent.
[00:10:10]  But I'm not sure it would be because I think this was a fairly unique case that was constructed.
[00:10:19]  It was a novel case constructed by Roberta Kaplan, among others.
[00:10:25]  And it's just so obviously politically motivated that I'm not sure it's going to really be tried again.
[00:10:35]  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.