The jury in E. Jean Carroll’s civil suit against the former president rejected the rape allegation. Meanwhile, Republican Congressman George Santos has reportedly been charged with federal offenses. Tim O’Brien, Cynthia Alksne and Charles Coleman break down the day’s legal bombshells.Allow me this rant about the Republicans as "the party of law and order" — that's branding for being the party of using the law to maintain the social order. If the law doesn't maintain the social order, the party's not for it. It's right up there with "pro-life" for anti-abortion, "fiscal responsibility" for not spending money and people and causes the party disapproves of, regardless of whether it makes economic sense, and "pro-family" for discriminating against people who don't fit in the Twentieth Century nuclear family — all branding for gaining power to enforce the social order. Don't believe those slogans as anything else. Once that's clear, all the lawlessness by GOP members and politicians makes perfect sense.
PBS NewsHour went into more detail about yesterday's verdict in Breaking down the verdict as jury finds Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation, where it was the top story as well.
A New York jury found former President Trump liable for sexually abusing columnist E. Jean Carroll in the mid-90s and later defaming her. The nine jurors deliberated for a few hours before delivering their verdict and awarding Carroll $5 million. Trump called the verdict "a disgrace" and his lawyers said they will appeal. Amna Nawaz discussed the case with Andrea Bernstein and Laura Beth Nielsen.Vox didn't list this case among The Trump investigations you should actually care about, but those were about criminal cases, this is a civil suit, but it turned out to be the first decided against Donald Trump since that video. It won't send him to jail — not that I think that will happen; as I wrote when TFG was indicted, "I expect he'll be sentenced to house arrest in Trump Tower with the Secret Service as his guards, at least for this set of crimes. He might get a more severe punishment if he's indicted and convicted for crimes in Georgia and Washington, D.C." — but it's a finding that he engaged in criminal behavior, even if he's not convicted of criminal charges. The judgment will hang over the rest of his re-election campaign. Too bad the lawlessness of the GOP primary voters is likely to allow him to be re-nominated.
On the other hand, George Santos is facing criminal charges, as MSNBC reported George Santos criminally charged by DOJ, calls for McCarthy to remove him from Congress on All In with Chris Hayes last night.
Congressman Dan Goldman (D-NY): “For George Santos to have a vote that counts as much as my vote is a travesty and I think that hopefully the Speaker will come around and recognize that that’s the right thing to do.”Goldman's right. Kevin "Pickled Tongue" McCarthy and Elise Stefanik aren't going to ask for Santos to resign. They care about his vote more than the dignity and integrity of the House of Representatives. We're stuck with Santos until he either loses re-election or resigns upon conviction (this includes a plea deal, which wouldn't surprise me in the least). Sigh.
It's unfortunate that the writers strike has canceled the late-night talk shows. The jokes about these two stories would have been priceless.
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