Donald Trump’s other legal problem
It’s a sign of just how corrupt a criminal Donald Trump is that rape is shamefully treated as one of his “minor” infractions by the news media. But now, thanks to a brand new law in the state of New York, survivors of sexual abuse can sue their abusers beyond the statute of limitations for civil claims, and Donald Trump is one of the very first sexual predators to have a complaint filed against him under this new law. The law came into effect on Thanksgiving Day.
Writer E Jean Carroll filed an upgraded lawsuit against Trump minutes after the new state law took effect. Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. She was already suing Trump for defamation because, while president, Trump denied the rape allegation saying that she was “not my type.” (You read that right, the president of the United States actually said something as infuriatingly tone deaf and stupid as that.)
It is the first time that Carroll was able to file a complaint directly alleging rape against Trump, instead of defamation about a public calumny concerning the topic of rape. A seemingly small distinction that must have felt huge to Ms. Carroll.
The Byzantine American statute of limitation laws (unknown in Britain for what is considered to be “historic abuse,” for example) make it impossible for her to file a criminal complaint against Trump. Frustratingly, Carroll must settle for civil action instead.
The fact that the media is treating this as a minor case in the voluminous catalogue of Trump’s many criminal transgressions must be dispiriting to Ms. Carroll. The evidence she has that Trump raped her is definitive. She kept the original dress that she was raped in unwashed and pristine. It contains DNA of an unknown male assailant. Donald Trump could eliminate himself as that assailant by providing his own DNA as proof, but he refuses to do so.
Shockingly, Trump isn’t hounded relentlessly and daily by the news media demanding to know why he would refuse to do such a thing if he were innocent. It’s every bit as damning as his refusal to release his tax returns, only it’s for a crime that’s infinitely more despicable than mere tax evasion. The media’s relative silence on this complaint is baffling, and ought to be infuriating to women everywhere.
That Trump refuses to provide his DNA and thus save himself hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees, untold man hours filing briefs and delays and obvious public shame positively screams guilt. If there’s another explanation for it Trump isn’t saying what it is. Fortunately for Trump, no one in the media seems to think it’s important enough to demand an answer.
Together with murder and treason, rape is among the most despicable crimes a human being can commit. There’s credible evidence that Trump is guilty of all three. We should never become so inured to the many crimes of Donald Trump that we fail to remind him of how detestable he is on that account, every second of every minute of every hour of every day for the rest of his life. 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.