E. Jean Carroll’s banana republic justice
E. Jean Carroll gets to keep her money. The Supreme Court has declined to review the $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict she won in federal court against Donald Trump. Carroll walks away enriched. Her financier – Reid Hoffman, a wealthy Democratic donor and LinkedIn co-founder who bankrolled the litigation – got his money’s worth too. But the rest of us are much poorer. We are left with a badly damaged legal system and a clarifying, disturbing lesson about American politics: lawfare works. Whether you love Donald Trump or loathe him, the wave of civil and criminal litigation targeting him over the past several years should alarm you.
