Trump filed a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court hoping to avoid paying Carroll the $5 million a jury said he owes her for calling her a liar after she accused him of sexual abuse in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. He lost the first trial. Then he kept talking and lost a second trial for $83 million. Now he wants the highest court in the land to overturn both verdicts because apparently losing twice wasn't definitive enough.
The legal strategy here is breathtaking. Get found liable for defamation. Appeal. Lose the appeal. Defame her again while the appeal is pending. Get sued again. Lose that trial for even more money. Appeal that one too. Then tell the Supreme Court the whole thing is unfair because you were just exercising your First Amendment right to call someone a liar on national television after a jury already decided you sexually abused her.
Retail traders saw this headline and immediately started scanning for the ticker symbol. They checked Truth Social's stock price. They googled whether you can short the Supreme Court. One guy in Wisconsin put his entire Roth IRA into legal defense GoFundMe tokens because he heard on a podcast that litigation is the new asset class.
The Supreme Court will almost certainly decline to hear this case because even they have limits on how many times they'll let someone relitigate whether calling someone a liar counts as defamation after two separate juries said it does. But the appeal buys time. And time is what you buy when you have money you don't want to pay someone.
Carroll's lawyers are probably billing hourly for this. They've made more money off Trump refusing to shut up than most day traders will see in a lifetime.
Photo by Fine Photographics on Unsplash
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