For years now, I’ve been telling you that Trump never gets his, and you have to abandon all hope that he ever will. Should you read further, you’ll see that’s no longer the case, because, holy crap, he was just held to account for a particularly foul deed perpetrated during his decades-long crime spree. So it’s happened once. What else is possible?
If you’re at all like me, then yesterday’s civil verdict, holding Trump liable to the tune of five million bucks for defamation related to his sexual battery of E. Jean Carroll, is both deeply, deeply satisfying, and somehow wholly insufficient. Don’t get me wrong, it’s delicious. It’s just that at end of the day, it doesn’t feel like the legal process, toward which Trump has displayed nothing but infuriating contempt, has thus far stripped enough wrinkly old skin off of Fat Donny’s puffy white ass. If you’ll pardon my French. For one thing, odds are that the grifting brute will be on the other side of the lawn before any protracted series of enforcement actions can make him fork over such a sum. The guy’s a career deadbeat. For another, it was disappointing that the jury didn’t make the factual finding that a rape, as opposed to mere “sexual abuse”, had occurred that day in Bergdorf’s (believe it or not, there’s a legal distinction that seems to turn on just exactly what happened, anatomically, with Donald’s sad little toadstool of a Johnson, as if that should be the crux of it). It didn’t much matter to the finding of defamation, but still, you want him to bear as much stigma as possible, and his lawyer, that mobbed-up-looking Tacopina guy (“Phoney Soprano”, some of the wags are calling him), was thus able to make noises like Trump had actually been vindicated, somehow, just because he was only a sexual abuser, which is not a rapist, for goodness sakes.
More to the point, it’s just a civil verdict. There’ll be lots of sloppy talk in the next few days about how Donald was “found guilty”, and “convicted”, but of course that’s not so. Those are terms from criminal law. Donald was merely found liable, which means that once the appeals have run their course, Ms. Carroll can take a number and join the long train of unsatisfied judgment creditors that Orange Idi has been dragging along behind him, hither and yon, for the last few decades. It doesn’t land him in jail, and it doesn’t disqualify him from running for President. But wait, you say, re the latter, surely a verdict like this is politically toxic, right? Well, yes, sort of. Just not as toxic as it ought to be. Time was, even a sexual scandal of much smaller magnitude, one involving a mistress, and nothing like rape, would certainly have finished somebody like him as a public figure. Not any more, not given the fierce, unreasoning devotion of the MAGA monsters of the Base, who still seem primed to make him the next Republican nominee for President. The days when any sort of immorality, even as awful as Trump’s, might force a politician out of the running entirely, leaving him to cry into his beer within a shrunken, lonely world of exiled disgrace, seem to be long gone, at least in the Trumpiverse (poor old Gary Hart must be bitter, eh?).
I still think that the ruling bathes him in a stink that’s likely to put off Independents, suburbanites, women, and maybe even a small but measurable percentage of working class male GOP voters (c’mon! It’s possible!), which, added together, could be crucial in the general election. Some pundits think that after the Access Hollywood affair, Donald’s sexual criminality is already baked in, but I’m trying to be more hopeful than that. I think yesterday’s verdict probably helps a lot in keeping him out of the White House. So yay! But of course, the id wants more. The id has some pointed questions, most of which come down to something like: So that’s it?!? He gets a judgment he can flout, and loses some votes in the general? No stint in the slam? No public flogging, or putting him in stocks in front of City Hall?
Well yeah, that’s it. I keep telling you, it was a civil trial, not a criminal proceeding. You never listen. However, listen now and take heart, all of you ids out there, because that’s only it for the moment. More, much more, should be coming ’round the pike any day now.
I’ll reiterate from my last post – just look at all the trouble he’s in! Folks, our Donny is in an unholy crapload of trouble. Trouble with the Feds for insurrection and stealing classified documents – each a very big deal – trouble in Georgia, for election fraud – likewise a big deal, which might even involve racketeering charges – trouble in New York, where A.G. Letitia James is still pursuing Trump for various business frauds in an action that could end in a penalty of 250 million dollars, and tear the whole Trump Organization down to the ground, and yet more trouble in New York, where he’s already been indicted on the Stormy Daniels hush money business. That might not be the end of it, either. Special counsel Jack Smith is now said to be looking into wire fraud connected with the hundreds of millions Donald raised post-election from all those poor, low-information, small-dollar donors who thought the money was going to support the legal fight to overturn the 2020 results. That’s not what the money was for. That was a lie. A lie told to hundreds of thousands, even millions of individuals, in millions of individual fundraising emails, each its own distinct little instance of wire fraud. That alone could be worth decades in the joint. There’s also talk of securities fraud, and an SEC investigation into the way Donald capitalized his “Truth Social” ersatz Twitter platform.
Heck, there might even be more after that, who knows what they’ll dig up next, even as all those other big fat crime pigeons finally start coming home to roost.
Everybody’s got to hurry up though! 2024 looms, and tragically, he could still get himself elected President (I don’t think so, but then, I didn’t think so the first time, so why listen to me?), at which point, presumably, any pursuit of criminal charges has to go on hold (though this is a very complex question, especially when it comes to violations of State laws not covered by that infamous Justice Department legal memo). It might be even worse than that. I bet if he gets in, the first thing Donny does is try to pardon himself, and with this Supreme Court, maybe he could get away with it. That won’t matter to Georgia and New York proceedings, but it could put an end to the even more dangerous Federal indictments that I’m sure Jack Smith is going to recommend. So let’s get the lead out, people!! What, are you on a break?! Look alive! Hustle! Nail this guy! For the love of God, run a pole through him already, before it’s too late!
[Aside: possible discordant note: Just to keep things light and happy, I’m assuming that if Donald gets convicted of serious crimes before the election, he won’t be voted back into his former digs at 1600 Pennsylvania. You know what, though? I don’t think there’s anything that makes it unlawful or unconstitutional. I don’t think it’s a contingency the Founders even remotely considered when drafting their Craptacular Constitution. Or anybody else ever since, for that matter. Yikes, can you imagine? What a shit show that would be! Never mind. Let’s stick with my assumption. Let’s bask in the possibility that Trump finally gets his just deserts, and never gets voted into any office, ever again.] [O.K.? O.K.]
Oh, won’t it be delightful? How very sweet when sanity and the rule of law yet prevail, even accepting that no matter what happens, we’ll probably be denied the ultimate pleasure of seeing Donald behind bars in some lightless Alabama supermax; I just don’t see how that’s feasible for an ex-President entitled to Secret Service protection. I dunno. Maybe there’s a way. If not, though, the wretched, criminal dummy can still be strapped into a LoJack and put under house arrest, and in that case I don’t think the house has to be Mar-a-Lago. I don’t know where that’s written. Maybe it could be any old house the state provides. Perhaps we could get him a nice bungalow in a less desirable corner of Staten Island, with a view of something industrial and nasty.
Meanwhile, no, today’s verdict doesn’t get the job done, but it’s a start. Maybe the start of something wonderful: Justice.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
So I did a little digging around in Google Earth, and I think I’ve found the perfect little spot for Donald. These homes on Staten Island , see above, look out upon this majestic vista from their not at all panoramic front windows:
See also my 2019 post on Carroll’s case:
the needlefish 