That is E. Jean Carroll with the white umbrella. She was photographed, yesterday, as she entered a New York City courthouse. Carroll was headed to the courthouse to hear the jury's verdict in her lawsuit against former president Donald J. Tump. Trump was found liable, some time ago, for maligning and defaming Carroll. He was also found to have sexually assaulted her. The trial that ended yesterday, with the jury's verdict, was a trial on what damages Trump should pay Carroll in the defamation action.
The jury (most emphatically not picked personally by President Biden, or by any other political figure) decided that Trump should pay Carroll $83.3 million. That stupendously large jury award includes $65 million in punitive damages. You can click right here to read what history professor Heather Cox Richardson had to say about the verdict against Trump. If you click here, you can read an analysis by Joyce Vance, a former United States Attorney.
According to The New York Times, the former president complained, after the verdict, that the jury's decision was a "Biden directed witch hunt," and that he had been stripped of all of his First Amendment rights.
It seems clear, from the reports I have linked, and others, that the size of the punitive damages award against our former president was largely based on his inability to refrain from bellicose and adversarial comments during the trial. The jury penalized him, in other words, for his apparent inability to keep his mouth shut when that would have been the wisest course of action.
Is an adversarial, bellicose person, who doesn't know when to keep his mouth shut, a good pick for president?
You decide.
Meanwhile, E. Jean Carroll is just "Singing in the Rain."
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