We’ve stopped counting Donald Trump’s lies. But there was a time when reporters were assigned full-time to measure Pinocchio’s nose.
Consider that Daniel Dale, of Toronto Star, was hired at CNN to verify the veracity of every sentence of Donald Trump. The enormity of the distortion of reality was such that the network said to itself: by calmly exposing the lies, the public will be able to judge for themselves. Dale counted around 9,000 lies between 2016 and 2020, when he declared himself “physically unable” to continue his checks and calculations.
In 2021, the washington post had, meanwhile, estimated at 30,573 the number of false or misleading statements made in a single short warrant by the 45e President of the United States.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is 21 lies a day. Public lies, that is to say documented, verifiable.
The exercise seemed relevant at first, but eventually it got repetitive. And above all: without any political impact.
The Republican president’s supporters either didn’t believe these assessments by “corrupt” media, or saw it as innocuous personal style. In short, in the end, no one cared anymore.
Trump has proven that if you lie persistently enough, you inoculate public opinion. We freeze it. And there’s nothing no one can do to stop this torrent of falsehood pouring out in high places.
Nothing ?
Almost nothing…
There is a place where it is more dangerous to say anything, to lie brazenly or to twist the neck of the facts too violently.
This place is a court of law. The only place I’ve seen Trump admit he lied was in an examination under oath in a civil case that took place many years before his presidency.
“So, Mr. Trump, when you said X, that wasn’t true?”
“No, that wasn’t true.
Oh !
Don’t ask yourself why all his cases are settled “out of court”. Trump witness is the absolute nightmare of his lawyers. And every other lawyer’s ultimate fantasy.
In this little corner, on this little chair, he no longer controls the game, nor the rules, nor the clock. Lying is a criminal offence. Getting tangled up in his lies can cost you millions. Gotta make a mistake.
So don’t ask yourself either why his lawyers told him, in the lawsuit brought by the ex-journalist E. Jean Carroll: you’re not setting foot in the courthouse for the whole trial, is that clear?
This woman is claiming millions from Trump, says he raped her, defamed her, explains how…
But he does not come to explain himself to the jury. Don’t even physically come into the courtroom.
What the jury got for Trump’s version of events was an out-of-court interrogation held in October 2022. These depositions are usually given in a law office, in private, and are used to prepare the case.
It suffices to watch the 46 minutes made public to understand 1) why his lawyers did not want to have him heard; 2) why the nine-person civil jury just awarded him $5 million in damages.
I paraphrase an excerpt:
“Mr. Trump, when you say a star can kiss and grab a woman’s genitals without her permission, is that what you mean?”
— Historically, this is true for stars […]. If you look back over millions of years, that’s generally true. Unfortunately or fortunately.
“And you consider yourself a star?”
“I think you can say that.
Boom!
He who denied having ever seen, let alone touched Carroll, has just explained that he has his own license to sexually assault.
Like in Neolithic times, and long before, when the “star” caveman could do it, as historians and archaeologists will tell us, I imagine…
He also looked crazy mistaking Carroll in a photo for his own second wife…while saying Carroll is “not his type”.
– I imagine that your wife was “your type”?
– Yes.
So, if he confuses the complainant with one of his ex-wives “of his kind”, it is that she is perhaps of “his kind”.
Boom!
The jury found in three hours that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll 30 years ago in a New York department store – without concluding that she was the victim of “rape”, a concept abandoned in Canadian law, which supposes a penetration.
The jury also found, logically, that Trump defamed the 79-year-old woman by saying that she was lying, that she was deranged, and that she only wanted to get rich by making up a story.
On Twitter Tuesday evening, we learned that one of the nine jurors was openly sympathetic to Trump, but that, faced with the evidence, and with the rule of law, he felt that the only possible verdict was that one.
There is still such a thing as the rule of law in this country.
It’s just a civil sentence. Trump is not found here “guilty” of sexual assault, but “responsible” for the damage caused to this woman for her actions and words.
Trump has already denounced this verdict as a farce, and an appeal will be filed.
Nevertheless: this court decision is another pebble in the Republican shoe. This isn’t Trump’s last trial, far from it. This man will be a delight to the prosecutors if he decides to testify.
His testimony sank him.
There is, however, another meaning to the word deposition: it is the dethroning of a monarch.
Perhaps this verdict marks the beginning of Trump’s true deposition as king of the Republican Party.
I like to think that it will have started with the challenge issued by E. Jean Carroll.
She’s the kind of woman I like, I admit.