After an appeals court upheld veteran journalist E. Jean Carroll's $5 million judgment against Donald Trump on Monday — one day after the president-elect former floated the idea of retribution against the ex-advice columnist — ex-federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann said Trump is likely the one in danger.
"This is an interesting day," the former FBI counsel told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace during the latest episode of Deadline: White House.
"I think clearly what the former president and president-elect is doing is another shot across to send a message to those people who might sue him for wrongs," Weissmann continued. "E. Jean Carroll obviously was the victim here, as found by not one but two juries that awarded her a sum of over 85 million dollars, and they found that she was sexually is assaulted."
The former top prosecutor went on to explain why Trump's appeal failed.
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"And so, the claims against her by Donald Trump are unsupported by any facts, and in fact, are contrary to the jury verdicts and just legally, by the way, Donald Trump cannot re-litigate that," Weissmann emphasizes. "He had an opportunity not once, but twice, he could have testified and didn't, so this is a lot of fear-mongering, but it is effective fear-mongering, as we have seen in a variety of different contexts. It's something to keep an eye on in terms of the courts."
Weissmann continued, "Today's decision is frankly quite a routine decision. There was not much of a legal issue here. The court issued an unusually long opinion, probably to make sure this case was bulletproof in terms of an appeal. It was issued per curiam — one judge wrote it. I think that also was an is the effect of Trump, so that no one judge was bearing the brunt of any repercussions. And it remains to be seen just whether the judicial system is going to hold up. But today is a good sign. It remains to be seen whether it is going to last for four more years of this."
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