Trump’s 'enormous financial power' may carry more weight than the rule of law: analysis

05 February 2024

Former President Donald Trump's defenders and detractors have radically different views on the $83.3 million in damages a jury ordered him to pay writer E. Jean Carroll in her second civil defamation lawsuit against him.

To Trump's defenders, that verdict and the four criminal indictments that he is facing show him to be the target of a well-orchestrated campaign of persecution. But to Trump's detractors, that $83.3 million — which follows the $5 million in damages a jury awarded Trump in Carroll's first defamation case against him in 2023 — is an example of the 2024 GOP presidential frontrunner finally facing accountability after dodging it for many years.

The New Republic's Michael Tomasky, a scathing critic of Trump, applauds the judgement in an article published on February 5. But Tomasky also expresses fears that Trump's "financial power" could prevail over the rule of law.

"We tell ourselves we're a nation of laws," Tomasky argues. "But what if that is a lie? What if that's a fairy tale?.... We are forced to confront the devastating possibility that our legal and political systems have no way of punishing obviously illegal and immoral behavior when carried out by someone with enormous political and financial power."

Nonetheless, Tomasky hopes that Trump's "law-flouting" will have real consequences.

"Trump has, after all, been indicted four times," Tomasky writes. "He is charged with 91 specific criminal acts. A jury of his peers…. just awarded a woman, whom he repeatedly defamed, more than three times the amount of money her lawyer was seeking. And back in 2020, when he was trying to overturn the election, the courts were having none of it — even courts overseen by his own appointees."

Tomasky adds, "So the legal system has some fight in it. But the battle is far from won."

Read Michael Tomasky's full article for The New Republic at this link.

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