Jurors awarded 'astronomical' amount because they knew Trump had 'to be thwarted': expert
E. Jean Carroll's massive $83.3 million civil judgment against former President Donald Trump on Friday is a huge blow to the former president — and a real, devastating consequence for the former president spending months repeating the same claims against her already ruled defamatory by a prior jury.
That's the view of former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissman, who weighed in on MSNBC that evening.
"It brings me back to an argument that Carroll's attorneys made during closing arguments which was this, this trial is also about something much more profound, whether the rules that apply to everyone else, to you, to me, to Miss Carroll, whether they also apply to Donald Trump, and it feels when I hear that total, $83.3 million in damages, that that was the jury's answer in some ways to that macro question," said anchor Alicia Menendez.
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"Absolutely," agreed Weissmann. "The way I look at this is the fact that you have nine jurors unanimously making this conclusion in short order is a vindication of the rule of law. It means that Judge Kaplan was successful in keeping those antics at bay of having the jurors do their duty and when you think about this, compare this to the prior verdict" — which was only $5 million for sexual abuse and defamation.
This dramatically higher verdict sends the signal that "if you continue to defame somebody, that $5 million judgment, if this was entirely Donald Trump's fault and doing, it is his continued actions that led to this," said Weissmann. "I think E. Jean Carroll has to be really pleased. It was tenacious to bring the first suit. It was tenacious to continue. Remember, people thought after the first verdict should she just stop at that point? But she was continuing to be defamed by him, and so they went forward, and I think this is a huge vindication for her, for her counsel and for, I think, the Me Too movement and for the rule of law ... unanimously making this finding and clearly deciding that $5 million, not enough, these are continued defamation that has to be thwarted and so this is an incredibly meaningful amount of money."
"It's really astronomical, and ... there may very well be more to come, and you can be sure that Judge Kaplan is going to be overseeing the ways in which this judgment is enforced against Donald Trump, so that it doesn't just become something that's on the books and paper but there's actually enforcement and the money is actually paid to E. Jean Carroll and her counsel," said Weissmann.
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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