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With Trial Delayed, Trump Posts 44 New Attacks On E. Jean Carroll

With Trial Delayed, Trump Posts 44 New Attacks On E. Jean Carroll

At the start of Monday’s session in Donald Trump’s trial for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, one of the jurors reported they were sick. However, a civil trial can proceed without the full complement if both sides agree, and Carroll’s lawyers told Judge Lewis Kaplan they were ready to carry on.

At that point, Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba stood up to tell Kaplan that she wasn’t feeling well herself—possibly because her latest motion for a mistrial was immediately smacked down—and that she wanted a delay. Habba also stated that her client wanted to testify, but didn’t want to do so before Tuesday’s New Hampshire primaries.

After further discussion, Kaplan agreed, and the day’s events were gaveled to a close. Then, within seconds of being dismissed from the courtroom, Trump got down to the serious work of the day: sending out at least 44 social media attacks on the woman he is liable for sexually assaulting.

Most of Trump’s attacks on Monday consisted of posting Carrol’s old social media posts, portions of old articles, and interviews with Carroll. Few of the items posted have any relevance to the case, and none of them contain exculpatory evidence for Trump.

The purpose of these posts seems to be to imply that Carroll was someone who often talked about sex. But after boiling down over a decade of posts, Trump managed to come up largely with material that would barely raise an eyebrow in an office conversation.

Of course, the posts weren’t intended to impact the trial, and they will never be seen by the general public. They’re there just to keep Trump’s base rabid and to help them see the 80-year-old Carroll as some sort of deviant for talking about men, sex, and people she found attractive. Or even more bluntly, they’re designed to make her seem like someone who got what she deserved.

This sort of attack is exactly why Trump is in court in the first place. After Trump was found liable in May of last year, Judge Kaplan clarified that the only reason Trump wasn’t found to have raped Carroll was because of the technical definition of the act under New York law.

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’” wrote Kaplan.

In September, Kaplan ruled that Carroll’s claim of rape was “substantially true under common modern parlance.”

The whole reason Trump is back in court on this case is that after Carroll publicly described her rape in a 2019 book, Trump issued a statement—from the White House—in which he not only denied her claim but also said he had never met Carroll, accused her of just “trying to sell a new book,” and suggested Carroll was working with the Democratic Party to attack him. He also accused Carroll of hurting actual rape victims with her “false accusations.”

The question this new jury has to answer is how much Trump owes Carroll for defaming her in his statements. Based on his actions during Monday’s delay, the best answer may be: Keep the meter running.

At the moment, Trump is still saying that he will testify in the case. That doesn’t mean it will happen. Trump was due to testify for the defense at his real estate fraud trial in New York, but he withdrew at the last minute. If he does testify, it will be very interesting to see if Trump can stay within the bounds the court has set for him.

In saying that she wasn’t feeling well at the beginning of the trial, Habba also revealed that at least one of her parents had COVID-19 and that she had been exposed, but she also claimed to have tested negative. Habba, of course, took absolutely no precautions and did not wear a mask in court. So the delay could potentially stretch out for some time.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

Judge In 9/11 Case Confirms FBI Is Investigating Defense Lawyers

Judge In 9/11 Case Confirms FBI Is Investigating Defense Lawyers

By Richard A. Serrano, Tribune Washington Bureau

FORT MEADE, Md. — The judge in the Sept. 11 conspiracy case at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, confirmed Thursday that the FBI is investigating apparent wrongdoing by the defense team for suspected mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a complication that has further delayed the complex, slow-moving case.

The sudden turn of events has frustrated prosecutors, who want to move the case closer to trial, and angered relatives of the victims, some of them coming away from this week’s hearings believing the pretrial process has been “sabotaged.”

Mohammed and four others were arraigned nearly two years ago, but the case is deeply bogged down in legal issues. What would be the only trial of those accused of planning, financing and orchestrating the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history is possibly still years away.

Donald Arias, whose brother Adam Arias died in the World Trade Center, said he could not understand why the U.S. government has used drones to kill terrorists abroad and yet is “obsessed” with granting the five Guantanamo Bay defendants, none of them U.S. citizens, every legal right before a trial. All five have pleaded not guilty.

“Let’s get on with it,” he said.

According to revelations Monday, two FBI agents went to the home of a security analyst working with lawyers representing defendant Ramzi Binalshibh on April 6. They reportedly asked him how a manifesto written by Mohammed had been leaked to some news outlets in January and urged him to serve as an FBI informant. The news put off what was supposed to have been a week of pretrial hearings.

The analyst, a civilian contractor with a top secret security clearance, advised his employer, SRA International Inc. in Fairfax, Va., about the FBI visit and the defense teams for all five alleged conspirators later learned of it as well.

The judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, is now trying to sort out the status of the FBI investigation and determine how to proceed. But on Thursday he cautioned, “I’m not saying there is any wrongdoing by any members of the defense teams.”

Pohl said he wants the analyst to step down and write a formal declaration about the FBI visit, seal it in an “envelope not to be read by anybody,” and give it to James Harrington, Binalshibh’s lead attorney, who will submit it to the court.

Despite the many delays in the case, with critics complaining it could have been held in a federal court years ago, the chief military prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, said he remained hopeful that jury selection can begin in January.

“There has been no waning in the effort underway to get this case to trial,” he said. “When each of us was assigned to this important mission, we were prepared for a marathon.”

“Of course our hearts go out to the family members of those who were killed on 9/11, and we can certainly understand their frustration.”

But James G. Connell III, a lawyer who represents Ammar al-Baluchi, also known as Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, said he could not see the trial beginning until after 2016. He said 300,000 pages of legal discovery material have been turned over by prosecutors to the defense, but that more substantial documents, such as where the defendants were first held and possibly tortured before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, have not been made available.

“We are nowhere near a trial,” Connell said.

Harrington, Binalshibh’s attorney, said defense lawyers still want to visit a wide selection of countries as part of their pretrial research, but it often takes two months to get Pentagon approval for those trips. He said his team hopes to interview potential witnesses in 17 countries, but has been able to visit only seven.

A group of family members who witnessed the proceedings at Guantanamo Bay this week ended up deeply frustrated.

Gloria Snekszer’s sister, Vicki Linn Yancey, was aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. “The process to delay, delay, delay discourages me,” she said.

The next pretrial hearings are scheduled for June. They are conducted at the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and simulcast at Fort Meade.

Photo: o.maloteau via Flickr