Former President Donald Trump has sought to play up "big wins" in court on the campaign trail — but those wins are grossly overstated at best and outright mischaracterizations at worst, legal expert Lisa Rubin wrote for MSNBC on Thursday.
This comes as Trump struggles to find his campaign footing after President Joe Biden exited the race, clearing the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to take over as Democratic nominee.
"First, Trump touted his 'big win' in a 'high Florida court' against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos, which Trump claimed is a 'powerful case' that will force the news media 'to start telling the truth,'" wrote Rubin.
Specifically, this is the case in which Trump is arguing Stephanopoulos' claim Trump was adjudicated to have raped E. Jean Carroll was defamatory, as a jury technically only found him liable for sexual abuse — even though Judge Lewis Kaplan established this is not a meaningful distinction.
Trump is celebrating that a judge refused to dismiss the lawsuit at this stage — but, noted Rubin, the judge didn't touch the merits of Trump's case, which she says he'll still have a hard time defending.
And then there's Trump's victory laps over far-right District Judge Aileen Cannon tossing his Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, a matter special counsel Jack Smith is appealing to a higher court.
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Trump claimed in a post that he was "WINNING against the FULL FORCE AND POWER of the U.S. Department of Justice." But, wrote Rubin, "Cannon’s dismissal of that case rested solely on her determination that special counsel Jack Smith, who has not been subject to day-to-day supervision by the Justice Department, was appointed and funded in violation of certain provisions of the Constitution" — which, aside from the fact that this is a dubious ruling likely to be overturned, actually means the opposite of what Trump claims.
Smith was ruled too independent of the DOJ, so Trump didn't in any meaningful sense beat the DOJ.
"Where it comes to legal proceedings, Trump has never played nice — and even a brush with death is unlikely to change that," wrote Rubin.
A major hurdle remains for Trump in his legal situation: he was convicted on 34 felony business record falsification charges in Manhattan, and if — as is likely — Judge Juan Merchan rejects his claims to presidential immunity from the decision under the Supreme Court's recent ruling, he could be sentenced as soon as September.
