The depths of hell
When you think of the 83.3 million dollar judgement against Donald Trump in the E Jean Carroll defamation case, think of it as the civil equivalent of Alvin Bragg’s 34-count criminal fraud case: only the beginning. That is to say, there’s more and bigger to follow. Stay tuned.
That’s the good news. Now here’s the bad news. Just as every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings, every time Donald Trump opens his big, stupid mouth someone’s reputation, or even life, is put at risk. You might remind the slavering, obsequious cretins of MAGA world of this salient fact every time they moan and cry and whine to their mommies about Trump’s “right to free speech.”
Let’s be clear. It’s NOT unfair that Donald Trump’s First Amendment rights are being abridged by various gag orders and sundry admonitions by certain judges. It’s the other side of freedom of speech. You cannot use your speech to endanger the lives and comfort and freedom of other people. That’s not free speech, that’s terrorism. Get the difference? Just ask E Jean Carroll.
So when New York district judge Lewis Kaplan warned the jury in the E Jean Carroll case, “My advice to you is that you never disclose to anyone that you were on this jury,” I regard that as an outrage, a confession of failure, an admission that we have failed to protect a significant portion of society.
I hasten to add that it’s not Judge Kaplan’s fault. He performed brilliantly. The failure is a failure of messaging and of law. We have failed to teach the idea, one that should be taught to every child in every school, that every time someone endangers someone’s life or reputation with words it should be as illegal as robbing a bank. News broadcasters should be outraged. They should report it with the same language and same sense of alarm as they would any serious crime. The other side of the Constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech ought to be freedom FROM speech.
Moreover, the Supreme Court ought to hold such behaviour unconstitutional. They ought to help keep all Americans safe irrespective of party. Freedom from fear that a moron like Trump could arbitrarily ruin or endanger your life should be out of the question. Such power ought not to belong to anyone and its flagrant abuse should be held to be intolerable.
Judge Kaplan should not, therefore, have to warn juries to never reveal to anyone that they served on any case. It should go without question that their safety is assured. Instead, Trump should carry that burden. He should be told to never use social media to defame or threaten or condemn anyone else.
This is what Trump’s argument is really about. He’s not angry because his freedom of speech has been infringed or abridged. He’s not angry that it somehow interferes with his right to campaign for the presidency. Instead, he’s angry that he can’t use his freedom of speech to frighten people into doing what he wants. He has the whole Republican Party terrified of his words and prepared to do anything he wants to avoid his wrath. That’s absurd. That’s partisanship run amok.
E Jean Carroll herself tells a story about the malignant power of Trump’s words. One day recently she was on one of her rare grocery shopping trips. She had just bought two weeks worth of groceries. She was rolling her shopping cart out of the store when she noticed a strange man leaning against her car. She quickly ducked back inside and waited. She had to wait a very long time for him to go away. When he finally did she rushed her cart out to her car, opened the car door, got in and drove off. It wasn’t until she’d got all the way home that she realised she’d forgotten her groceries.
This is what she must face after years of being lied about and bullied and defamed and threatened online and in the media by someone as powerful as Donald Trump. For now, anyway, Trump is keeping his mouth shut about E Jean Carroll. But it took a penalty of $83.3 million to do it.
Donald Trump should have never been permitted to open his mouth about Carroll in the first place. He should have been jailed the minute he stochastically terrorised her. If we had a Constitutional right to freedom from speech that’s how it would have been. Until we do, evil people like Trump will continue to use their power to harm anyone he dislikes or who pays inadequate fealty to his limitless ego. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.