Tuesday, January 16, 2024

Oh, Iowa!

It is a question of who shows up. But Iowa hasn’t picked a non-incumbent president in decades. And when only 15% show up, that matters, too.

Meanwhile, back in New York (federal) court again:
The defense they are presenting to a damages trial for libel is to…libel the plaintiff even more. Tacopina tried the first Carroll suit and couldn’t defend Trump from charges of sexual assault. The smartest thing he did was send Trump to Scotland for the trial. He’s starting to look like the competent one.
Unlike his NY fraud trial in state court, this case is being tried in federal court. Therefore, the mini press conferences that Judge Engoron permitted in the courthouse where Trump would rant and rave the same mantra day after day are not allowed in this case, and Judge Kaplan made it clear right from the start that he was not going to tolerate the kind of foolishness and antics that Engoron allowed in his courtroom from Trump or his lawyers. 
Alina Habba attempted to readdress some of the evidentiary issues that Kaplan has already ruled upon and he shut her down immediately, stating at one point, "In my courtroom, when a ruling is made, that's the end." Habba then tried to readdress the funeral of Melania's mother scheduled for Thursday in Florida. Habba complained that she has "never seen" someone forced to choose between attending a trial or a funeral. Kaplan said that if the trial schedule called for Trump to testify on Thursday, he would then postpone the case until Monday to accommodate him, but wasn't going to continue the entire trial for a week.
And then came the "She should be paying me!” defense.
The judge then instructed the jury that a previous jury already made a finding that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll by inserting his finger into her vagina against her will, and they are bound by that decision. Kaplan told them that this trial is only about damages. Shawn Crowley made the opening statement for Carroll. Crowley said that she would show them the threatening text messages and hundreds of other threats Carroll has received on a daily basis after Trump unleashed his followers on her, and has never stopped doing so until the present day. Crowley then asked the jury, "How much money will it take to get him to stop? Because he hasn't stopped." 
Crowley then said the reason why there were two sets of defamatory statements in this case is because Trump again attacked her after the jury verdict in the first trial. She said that during his CNN Town Hall, Trump called her a liar and a "whack job." Crowley then told the jury that Trump has never stopped attacking Carroll, and was even doing it this morning on Truth Social before and during jury selection. She told the jury that Trump posted 22 attacks on Carroll on Truth Social just that very day alone. 
Alina Habba then got up to make her opening statement. She almost immediately drew an objection and was warned by the judge when she started to argue that Trump was just "defending himself" when he made the statements. 
Habba then claimed that Carroll has actually benefitted from Trump's defamation because she has become famous because of it, and claimed that he goal was always to become famous. She claimed that Carroll wanted Trump to pay her for his "mean tweets." 
Habba then told the jury about articles Carroll wrote for women giving them advice on how to "catch" a man for a relationship. She claimed that Carroll moved from Montana for New York because her career was failing. She claimed that when media would interview her about her book, they only wanted to talk about Trump instead of the substance of her book, so she was essentially using Trump to gain fame and notoriety. 
Habba then blamed Carroll for the threats that she received, stating that anyone who makes allegations that serious against a sitting president was going to get backlash from his supporters. She said that, instead of being stressed out by them, she was "fully enjoying the attention." She then said that Carroll reveled in becoming a victim and exploited it for her own benefit by becoming a victim advocate which has "become part of her identity." Habba then claimed that by doing interviews, Carroll made it worse for herself: "She was the catalyst of her own harm." 
Habba said that the people attacking Carroll were just "twitter trolls," and she has "monetized her brand" by being a victim. She claimed that Carroll has been invited to interviews that she never would have gotten and made friends with people she never would've met - like Mary Trump and Kathy Griffin. She then mentioned that Griffin once posed with a replica bloody head of Trump. Habba said that Carroll "craves fame" and has never done anything to try and repair her reputation if it was damaged.
"Repairing her reputation” is not only not a defense in libel, it’s damned hard to if the defendant continues to commit libel even as if the day if jury selection:
Trump's Social Media Director Dan Scavino posted a video of him arriving in NYC at 3:30 AM from Iowa, and he was up bright and early this morning and in federal court at 9:30. He also plans on attending a rally in NH tonight after court, before flying back to NY for the remainder of the trial. Trump then renewed his attacks on E. Jean Carroll, making 30 posts on Truth Social about Carroll before noon - including while the trial was going on.
And I suspect Trump will be whining about his lawyer being "silenced" tonight: Federal judges don’t play.

Pretty sure I can predict the outcome of this trial.

And back to Iowa for context:
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