The campaign of lawfare that has engulfed much of President-elect Donald Trump's life for the past several years has been falling apart to an astonishing degree in recent months, and according to one prominent commentator, that collapse may be poised to continue.
With prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and Washington, D.C. suffering one defeat after another, Hoover Institution Senior Fellow Victor Davis Hanson recently suggested that now a civil case in which Trump was found liable to the tune of millions could also soon be subject to reversal, as the Daily Caller reports.
Hanson's opinion emerged during a recent installment of his podcast, The Victor Davis Hanson Show, in which ABC's recent legal settlement with Trump was discussed.
The network's decision to resolve a lawsuit filed by Trump over allegedly defamatory comments made by This Week anchor George Stephanopoulos could have significant implications for an appeal in writer E. Jean Carroll's previously successful case against the incoming commander-in-chief.
Hanson referenced the fact that Stephanopoulos repeatedly claimed during his Sunday panel program that in the Carroll case, Trump was found “liable for rape.”
Prior to settling the case with Trump, Stephanopoulos referenced comments made by the presiding judge in the Carroll case suggesting that while the jury had not specifically found that the defendant committed rape, there was no practical difference in their finding of “sexual abuse.”
The judge said that the jury's verdict should not be taken to mean that Carroll failed to prove that Mr. Trump 'raped' her as many people commonly understand the word 'rape.' Indeed...the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Hanson offered listeners a detailed explanation of why he believes Carroll's jury windfall may now be vulnerable to reversal due to the judge's unchecked musings from the bench.
“Well, George Stephanopoulos gave an interview, and I think on 11 occasions he said Donald Trump committed rape. In the E. Jean Carroll civil suit, she alleged that she was sexually attacked by him. The jury found that he did not commit rape but that he had committed, there was a likelihood he'd committed sexual assault,” Hanson said.
The podcaster and writer continued, “And the judge [Kaplan], as I remember his name, had misspoken and said, 'Well' somebody had corrected him or reminded him that he had never been convicted of rape and he said, 'What's the difference?' something along that line.”
“And that I think will be cause for reversal because that's up on appeal,” Hanson declared.
Outlining the rationale for that take, he added, “The judge basically...show[ed] pre-existing prejudice that if the judge knew the jury had not found or was not considering rape and yet he said publicly that they were indistinguishable, then that's going to be appealed.”
Trump's legal victories have continued to mount in the run-up to his inauguration, with both federal cases leveled by special counsel Jack Smith now dead in the water and Fulton County Fani Willis recently disqualified from continuing her pursuit of a RICO case against the incoming president.
Whether Hanson's prediction about the ultimate fate of Carroll's lucrative civil win proves correct, however, only time will tell.
