Former President Donald Trump on Saturday stood by his 2019 statement that writer E. Jean Carroll made a “totally false accusation” against him, despite similar claims resulting in him losing a defamation case in January.

Campaigning at a rally in Rome, Georgia, Trump referenced the $91.6 million bond he posted on March 8, three days before his deadline to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll for defaming her in statements he made as president after denying her accusation that he’d raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

Carroll first came forward in 2019 with sexual assault claims against Trump before another civil trial in May 2023, where a New York jury found that the former president sexually abused Carroll but didn’t rape her.

  • FenrirIII@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    “I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story,” Trump said, adding that the judgment was, “based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn’t know, never heard of, I know nothing about her.”

    What a dumbass.

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    4 months ago

    FWIW the New York jury found that she didn’t prove he forced his penis inside of her. They found he did force his fingers inside of her vagina. In New York state law, that is sexual assault but not rape. It is rape according to federal law, and most colloquial uses of the term “rape.” Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll, that is what was proven in court.

    He wasn’t charged with rape in either state or federal court, because the statute of limitations had expired when she went public with her story.

    So it’s important to be clear, the jury did not find him innocent of rape. They found he did commit an act that is widely considered rape. It’s inaccurate to say that they found he didn’t rape her. They found that the act that had been proven did not meet the narrow New York state law standard for rape.

    • meco03211@lemmy.world
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      They found he did force his fingers inside of her vagina.

      I thought it was that he put something inside her, but she was unable to clarify if it was his penis or finger.

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        “His fingers went into my vagina, which was extremely painful,” Ms. Carroll said. Then, she said, he inserted his penis.

        -NYT (see below)

        Whole incident:

        I’d never seen it specified exactly… horrible to read.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      Juries never find you innocent of anything. They find you not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. That is a big difference.

      Anyone who claims that a court found them innocent is lying.

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      He probably got some decent collateral for the effort. That may not have been that dumb of a move. For everything Trump has done, I think it will be wonderful if the thing that destroys him isn’t the fraud or the insurrection, but his inability to shut the fuck up over what was originally a minor financial inconvenience to him. I just hope he keeps spending RNC money faster than it can be donated.

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        4 months ago

        Court records filed Friday show that the bond was guaranteed by the Chubb Corporation, an insurance group. In 2018, Trump appointed Chubb’s CEO Evan Greenberg to a White House advisory committee for trade policy and negotiations.

    • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      He knows, but he just can’t hold it back… His urge to say something is unhinged, even if he knows that’ll maybe cost him more money.

      Extra dumbass

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      4 months ago

      Dumbass is such a dumbass that he doesn’t know that he can just not talk about this

      I think the one thing that has become clear here is, trump does not know what the word ‘defamation’ means.

    • Thunderbird4@lemmy.world
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      Unfortunately, I think he knows what he’s doing. He’s counting on being able to make all his troubles go away if he’s elected and he knows that maintaining the premise that these are unfounded, politically-motivated attacks by the deep state is exactly what his devotees want to hear. He just has to keep them living in his version of reality long enough to take the throne.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        He’s still a dumbass if he thinks that because state-level civil suits are not something presidents can make go away.

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    The year is 2065. E. Jean Carroll is the richest human alive. She rules a business empire that stretches across the globe and even to Mars. This empire does not charge for services, sell products or even take investor funding.

    Its only source of revenue is suing the immortal cyborg that is Donald Trump, who even after 40 years of taking Ls is still pathologically unable to keep his fucking mouth shut.

  • Suavevillain@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    The lack of empathy with Trump supporters should be studied. Because I would love to know what drives them to this man so much. He has the strongest collective of meat riders in human history.

      • FrickAndMortar@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I remember reading at the start of Covid in the US, when the government was saying “masks are dumb”, but local churches were going “masks save lives”, the churches were surprised at how much pushback they were getting.

        Turns out raising someone from a young age to believe without questioning, and look up to one person as their only source of truth, and ignore compelling scientific evidence, is pretty hard conditioning to break.

        Shockedpikachuface.jpg, #leopardsatemyface, etc.

        • Grass@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Doesn’t asbestos just give you mega asthma and giga cancer and not turn you into a soulless piece of shit?

        • homesnatch@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          Asbestos, while it has negative health implications, does not have a mind-altering component like lead poisoning.

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          Asbestos is more cancer-causing while lead does more of the developmental delay thing.

    • TheJims@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      America is full of assholes. Trump is their King. King of the assholes and hero to the stupid.

    • tegs_terry@feddit.uk
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      It’s called fanaticism, which is when people stop liking someone because of their actions/oratory and start liking the actions/oratory because they came from the person.

      Americans have been conditioned such that they’re fallible to this bullshit.

      • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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        Did we forget the Arabs, Swedes, Japanese, Russians, Canadians, Mexicans, need I go on?

        Human nature is a human nature thing, not an American thing.

        Sincerely,

        Someone not a fan of useful idiots pushing needless division.

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          Well, firstly, I didn’t say other people haven’t been brainwashed, just that americans had. Secondly, the american brand is very strong. Not a ton of countries would’ve allowed a specimin like trump to get anywhere near high office, let alone elected them president, all while crowing to all and sundry about what a utopia the usa is and how much better they are than everyone else!

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      I agree, but I think it’s more than that. Even if you think Trump is telling the truth and all of this is a made up lie (even though there are other signs like cheating on his wife to sleep with porn stars and being caught on a mic saying he just grabs women by the pussy), IT’S EXTREMELY DUMB for him to keep talking about it!

      Trump should be renamed to Xenu.

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      They all wish they could be him. These are people who would act JUST LIKE TRUMP if they could get away with it. They aren’t into him because of the policy, they are into him because they are jealous.

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    I want to thank Putin for funding E. Jean Carroll’s charities for helping abused women, and I am looking forward to more, even larger donations. Ukraine could use some aid, also, since Putin is feeling so charitable.

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    The irony of the GOP going bankrupt because they have to donate all their money to women’s charities after selling the party out to this buffoon is so think I could choke on it.

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        Let’s just go to absurdity here: 1 trillion dollars.

        I mean, why not, right? He can’t pay what he already owes. Might as well