The law defines Trump as a sexual abuser: will the verdict affect the elections?
The tumultuous and mile-long legal history of Donald Trump has just acquired a new layer, a new chapter. A nine-member Manhattan jury has unanimously convicted the mogul of sexual abuse and defamation.. The victim, the writer E. Jean Carroll, described in detail how he would have assaulted her in a fitting room of the Bergdoorf Goodman department store almost 30 years ago. His testimony convinced the jury and has managed to put Trump in a legal bind for which he must pay Carroll, if his appeal does not work, five million dollars. Although politically the millionaire is likely to pay no price.
“Finally, the world today knows the truth,” declared E. Jean Carroll after learning of the decision. The writer and journalist had revealed the accusation in a book published in 2019. Three years later, the New York Adult Survivors Act, passed in the context of the Me too movement, allowed Carroll to denounce Trump despite the fact that decades had passed since the incident..
“I have no idea who that woman is,” reiterated the defendant, who considered the verdict a “disgrace” and another example of the “witch hunt” to which he says he is subjected, referring to the multiple cases open against him.. A little over a month ago, the Republican was accused of falsifying and conspiring to allegedly hide the payment for the silence of a porn actress with whom he would have had sexual relations.. The legal team of the former president and candidate for the White House clings to the accusation of political persecution and has stressed that Carroll's most serious accusation, rape, has finally been left out..
The feminist sectors of the United States, galvanized since 2017 by Me too, celebrated the jury's decision as a long-awaited reckoning. In total, a dozen women had accused Trump, for three decades, of abuses similar to those denounced by Carroll.. But this has been the first time that one of these accusations has come to port.
Trump's lewdness is widely cited as a sideline for these incriminations. In 2016, the Democrats left their campaign for dead when a video surfaced in which Donald Trump was seen and heard, during the filming of a television show, boasting of simply approaching a woman to kiss her and “grab her by the pussy.” “, since, being famous, “they let you do it”. For a few days, it seemed like the ultimate scandal, political kryptonite, the coup de grace to the campaign of a populist who had been lucky to get so far in an election.. Weeks later, Trump was elected president of the United States..
Unless you live at the bottom of the sea with earplugs and a blindfold, Trump's unconventional nature should be commonplace by now.. Popular knowledge. A fact as fundamental as that water wets and day follows night. What would forever sink the career of any other Trump candidate not only does not harm him, but seems to strengthen him. This strange dynamic has a name: Trump's Law of Reverse Reactions.
In addition to the indictment and sentence in this civil trial, Trump faces a trial for allegedly instigating the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, another for having apparently pressured the Georgia authorities to commit electoral fraud at his favor and a third for handling secret documents once he left the presidency. Legal challenges that Trump uses to reinforce that image of a victim of the system, raise more money and improve positions with a view to 2024.
Trump gains advantage ahead of 2024
His campaign has raised $34 million since the indictment, a figure far higher than the operations of any of his rivals for the Republican primaries.. Loyalty to Trump among conservatives in Congress is stronger than ever; even in Florida, the fiefdom of Governor Ron DeSantis, considered potentially the most dangerous rival for Trump within the party, the most prominent local Republican figures are beginning to align themselves with the New Yorker.
Even if we look further, to the more than likely showdown with Joe Biden in November of next year, as a repeat of 2020, a recent poll by The Washington Post and ABC News gives the Democrat very bad numbers.. Donald Trump would be a few points ahead at the national level.
The way in which Trump has handled the legal storm of the impeachment of E. Jean Carroll has shown how unconcerned he is about being depicted, and now, with a firm conviction, as a sexual harasser.. “She would not be my type in any way, shape or form,” he said during questioning in October.. “You wouldn't be my choice either, to be honest. I hope you don't feel insulted,” the Republican continued, addressing the lawyer who was asking the questions, Roberta Kaplan..
The political bullet is already launched. Tonight, Trump, that agent considered toxic by the big progressive media that seemed to have decided to ignore him so as not to give him more air and more strength, will return to CNN. A prime time debate where the candidate is expected to answer questions related to this and other scandals. It will be the first time he has appeared on the channel since 2016: his first and successful campaign, whose contours are increasingly reminiscent of the current one..