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Jury Orders Trump To Pay $83 Million In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case

Jury Orders Trump To Pay $83 Million In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case

Donald Trump will have to pay journalist E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million in total damages in her defamation case, after nine jurors – seven men and two women – deliberated for just under three hours in a lower Manhattan federal courthouse Friday afternoon.

This is the second civil defamation and sexual abuse case Carroll brought against the ex-president, who is facing 91 state and federal criminal felony charges. Hen is also facing a civil business fraud case in New York, which has the potential to cost him hundreds of millions and bar him from doing business in the Empire State.

E. Jean Carroll’s case surrounded defamatory statements Trump made in June of 2019, and jurors were required to determine compensatory and punitive damages Trump owes for those statements. In the first case a jury determined Trump was liable for sexual abuse and defamation. The judge in both cases, senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan determined those facts would hold over for this case. He also had noted after the first case that Trump had effectively been found liable for rape, making the ex-president an adjudicated rapist.

Initially Carroll’s attorney asked for $10 million in compensatory damages in the current case, but expert testimony revealed it would cost the journalist, author, and advice columnist at least $12 million to repair her damaged reputation, and millions more in lost wages and other injuries.

Just Security last week described that as, “economic loss (lost income, career opportunities, or business deals due to damaged reputation) as well as for emotional distress (mental anguish, humiliation, and reputational harm).”

Carroll’s attorneys on Friday asked the jury for $24 million in compensatory damages. During closing arguments Carroll’s attorneys told the jury Trump’s claims of high net worth should be taken in to account when deciding how much to award Carroll in punitive damages.

Throughout the trial, and as recently as 11:30 AM Friday, Donald Trump continued his attacks, calling the trial the “E. Jean Carroll False Accusation Case,” and falsely claiming, “This is another Biden Demanded Witch Hunt against his Political Opponent, funded and managed by Radical Left Democrats. The Courts are totally stacked against me, have never been used against a Political Opponent, like this.”

The jury was required to answer these three “yes” or “no” questions:

“Did Ms. Carroll prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Ms. Carroll suffered more than nominal damages as a result of Mr. Trump’s publication of the June 21 and June 22, 2019 statements?”

“In making the June 21, 2019 statement, Mr. Trump acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will, or spite, vindictively, or in wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s rights?”

“In making the June 22, 2019 statement, Mr. Trump acted maliciously, out of hatred, ill will, or spite, vindictively, or in wanton, reckless, or willful disregard of Ms. Carroll’s rights?”

During the final day of trial, Donald Trump stormed out of the courtroom when he was criticized by Carroll’s attorney, the highly-respected Roberta Kaplan. Judge Kaplan (no relation) announced that would become part of the trial record.

Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, repeatedly ignored Judge Kaplan’s directions to not question the facts of the case, that Trump had been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation, yet she repeatedly ignored his warnings.

Judge Kaplan was forced repeatedly to warn and rebuke Habba, and at one point during closing arguments, he threatened Habba with jail if she continued.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

IS Claims Beheading Of Journalist, Warns U.S. On Iraq Strikes

IS Claims Beheading Of Journalist, Warns U.S. On Iraq Strikes

Baghdad (AFP) – Jihadists released a video apparently showing the beheading of an American journalist kidnapped in Syria, in the most direct retaliation yet to nearly two weeks of U.S. air strikes on Iraq.

As calls mounted for Washington to expand its military intervention against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, it also threatened to kill another U.S. reporter if the strikes did not stop.

The video posted online Tuesday showed a masked militant beheading a man resembling James Foley, who has been missing since he was seized in Syria in November 2012.

News of Foley’s apparent beheading comes as U.S. air strikes appeared to yield some results, helping Kurdish and federal forces push IS fighters back from some recently-conquered areas in northern Iraq, including the strategic Mosul dam.

According to Kurdish officers, another U.S. air strike was carried out early Wednesday, targeting an apparent jihadist meeting at a school near the dam. Washington did not immediately confirm the raid.

“We have never been prouder of our son Jim. He gave his life trying to expose the world to the suffering of the Syrian people,” Foley’s mother Diane said in a Facebook message to supporters.

“We implore the kidnappers to spare the lives of the remaining hostages. Like Jim, they are innocents. They have no control over American government policy in Iraq, Syria or anywhere in the world.”

The White House said U.S. intelligence was studying the video, and that President Barack Obama had been briefed on it as he flew from Washington to resume his vacation on Martha’s Vineyard.

“If genuine, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American journalist and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

Foley was an experienced correspondent who had covered the war in Libya before heading to Syria to follow the revolt against Bashar al-Assad’s regime, contributing to news site GlobalPost, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and other media outlets.

AFP chairman Emmanuel Hoog described Foley “as a brave, independent and impartial journalist” whose work in Syria and other war zones was “widely admired”.

According to witnesses, Foley was seized in the northern Syrian province of Idlib on November 22, 2012.

In the nearly five-minute video, titled “A Message to America”, IS declares that Foley was killed because Obama ordered air strikes against IS in northern Iraq.

The beheading is carried out in an open desert area with no immediate signs as to whether it is in Iraq or Syria by a black-clad masked militant who speaks English with a British accent.

Foley is seen kneeling on the ground, dressed in an orange outfit that resembles those worn by prisoners held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay.

“Any aggression towards the Islamic State is an aggression towards Muslims from all walks of life who have accepted the Islamic caliphate as their leadership,” the masked militant declares.

He threatens to kill another man shown in the video and said to be Steven Sotloff, whose kidnapping in August 2013 has not been widely reported.

He has written for several U.S. newspapers and magazines, including Time, Foreign Policy and The Christian Science Monitor.

Formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the IS declared itself a caliphate — a successor state to historic Muslim empires — in June this year.

Formed by a mixture of Sunni insurgents who have fought U.S. and Shiite-led government forces in Iraq and anti-regime rebels in Syria, it has attracted recruits from around the world.

It has laid claim to territory in eastern Syria and northern and western Iraq, and has headed a militant coalition that has seized large areas of five Iraqi provinces since June.

Earlier this month, Obama reacted by ordering U.S. warplanes to strike the jihadists, arguing they threatened U.S. personnel in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil and risked carrying out a genocide against religious minority groups.

Obama has insisted the scope of the strikes would remain limited but Iraqi officials and observers have argued only foreign intervention could turn the tide on jihadist expansion in Iraq.

Shiite militia, federal soldiers, Kurdish troops and Sunni Arab tribes have been battling IS for weeks in some areas but have been unable to clinch a decisive victory.

An offensive launched on Tuesday against Saddam Hussein’s hometown Tikrit was presented as a major push to liberate the city, but it appeared to have stalled a few hours later.

Shellfire periodically hit the city on Wednesday while Iraqi security forces remained positioned outside it, police and witnesses said.

U.S. and Iraqi officials say the strikes have already had an impact on IS morale but the intervention may also have galvanised some fighters as fighting Americans is a source of prestige in global jihad.

AFP Photo/Nicole Tung

Egypt Sentences Three Al Jazeera Journalists To Seven To Ten Years In Prison

Egypt Sentences Three Al Jazeera Journalists To Seven To Ten Years In Prison

By Amro Hassan and Laura King, Los Angeles Times

CAIRO — An Egyptian judge on Monday sentenced three journalists for the Qatar-based broadcaster Al Jazeera to between seven and 10 years in prison on terrorism-related charges, stunning their supporters and raising an immediate outcry from human rights advocates.

The harsh sentence came only a day after U.S. Secretary of State John F. Kerry visited Cairo and told Egyptian officials that the Obama administration would like to see the men freed. The charges against the journalists are widely viewed as politicized, stemming from Egypt’s anger over Qatari criticism of the Egyptian military’s deposing of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last summer.

The three — Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohammed Fahmy and Baher Mohammed — all work for Al Jazeera’s English-language service. All have strongly denied any wrongdoing.

In addition to a seven-year sentence on charges that included spreading false news and harming Egypt’s security, Mohammed, an Egyptian national, received an additional three-year term on a charge of possessing ammunition.

The judge also handed down 10-year sentences against three foreign journalists — two Britons and a Dutch national — who were tried in absentia. Two work for Al Jazeera, but the Dutch journalist, who has left Egypt, had no connection to the broadcaster.

Among other defendants in the case, two were acquitted and four others received seven-year sentences.

AFP Photo/Aris Messinis

Chinese Dissident, In TV Shaming, Apologizes For Spilling Secrets

Chinese Dissident, In TV Shaming, Apologizes For Spilling Secrets

By Barbara Demick, Los Angeles Times

BEIJING — One of China’s most venerable dissident journalists was paraded on state television Thursday morning, apologizing for spilling state secrets that embarrassed the Chinese Communist Party.

The public shaming of Gao Yu, a 70-year-old grandmother who had written widely about the pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square, was perhaps the most shocking in a recent series of on-air confessions.

“I believe that what I did broke the law and harmed the interests of the country. This was extremely wrong,” Gao, wearing an orange prison vest, said in the televised broadcast. “I sincerely and earnestly accept this lesson and I want to confess.”

Chinese state media described Gao as leaking state secrets, leading some commentators to call her China’s Edward Snowden. But the leaked document in question appears to have been ideological guidelines distributed to cadres last year by the Communist Party’s Central Committee. The so-called Document No. 9 railed against seven subversive elements — Western democracy, human rights, civic participation, neo-liberalism, independent media, questioning the history of the Chinese Communist Party and questioning China’s economic policy.

The ideas were widely reported in the foreign media, as well as in Communist Party journals, but Gao is accused of having obtained the full text of the document in June and of giving it to the Chinese-language website of Deutsche Welle, the German broadcaster.

Gao’s arrest, coming almost a year after the alleged crime, appears timed to the upcoming 25th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, military crackdown at Tiananmen Square, one of the most sensitive dates on the Chinese calendar.

“The government is trying to intimidate anybody who might discuss June 4 — that this is a taboo topic and that this is what will happen to you if you discuss it,” said Zhang Lifan, a Communist Party historian based in Beijing.

It is customary before the June 4 anniversary for the Chinese government to keep activists under house arrest as a precaution, but this year it has happened sooner and with more vigor than in the past.

Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent lawyer, was arrested early Monday morning after hosting a seminar for writers and academics on the Tiananmen Square crackdown at this home over the weekend. He was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” a catch-all charge often leveled against activists. At least four others who attended the session have also been detained.

Ironically, Gao was supposed to attend the same event at Pu’s home, but didn’t show up because she was already in detention. She had disappeared mysteriously from her home a week before, her whereabouts unknown until her appearance on television Thursday morning.

The broadcast on Gao was aired at 6.30 a.m., when viewership is low, and her face was blurred during the broadcast — courtesies that suggest she will be treated leniently in return for the confession.

Televised confessions — a legacy of the Communist custom of self-criticism — have become common fixtures on Chinese television the last few years. Among those trotted out for the cameras of late have been Charles Xue, a Chinese American blogger, a GlaxoSmithKline executive and a journalist.

Still, the roundup of activists is a disappointment for Chinese liberals, many of whom had enthusiastically predicted that Xi Jinping, who took over as president last year, would allow more candid discussion of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

“Twenty-five years of official impunity is enough — it is high time for the Chinese authorities themselves to face the truth, assume responsibility for their actions, and begin the healing process for the nation,” Sharon Hom, director of the New York-based organization Human Rights in China, said in a statement released Thursday.

According to the organization, Chinese authorities also have banned Ding Zilin, a prominent activist, from Beijing until after the June 4 anniversary. Ding, whose 17-year-old son was shot to death in 1989, is the best-known member of Tiananmen Mothers, a support group for families of victims. Anywhere from several hundreds to thousands of people were killed during the crackdown again demonstrators in 1989.

AFP Photo/Mark Ralston