Donald Trump just attacked E. Jean Carroll again – and the judge is not going to be happy
Earlier this week Donald Trump unleashed a social media tirade against E. Jean Carroll, just hours before the civil rape trial began. Carroll’s attorneys promptly read Trump’s remarks to the judge, who warned Trump that if he kept it up he could get hit with obstruction charges. Since that time, Trump has indeed avoided mentioning Carroll – until now.
Trump apparently had his campaign send an email to a bunch of journalists on Friday, which contained an article attacking Carroll that had been published on a right wing propaganda site. Trump perhaps thinks that this gives him just enough deniability to get away with it, since he can always say that he was merely forwarding an article written by someone else, or claim that he didn’t know his campaign was sending such emails.
But we don’t think that’s going to work. If the judge in this case wants to start hitting Trump with sanctions, that’s at the judge’s discretion. If the judge doesn’t buy Trump’s “it wasn’t really me” claims, then the judge is going to start handing out sanctions. Keep in mind that judges are expected to do so incrementally and proportionally, and any penalties perceived as overreach could be overturned on appeal. Those on social media demanding that the judge make the “most aggressive possible move against Trump right this minute!!!” are not really based in reality. That’s… not how this works.
That said, we fully expect Carroll’s attorneys to put this Trump email in front of the judge the next time the trial is in session, and we expect the judge to take some kind of action on it. Trump can try to play these games if he wants, but they’re not going to work in his favor. In this arena, this kind of thing can only hurt him.
