Free Republic

The wide-ranging leak investigation into the Pentagon continues to claim major scalps.Politico reported this afternoon that a third top official in the Defense Department was put on administrative leave Wednesday and escorted out of the building.The man in question is Colin Carroll, chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.As Politico notes, Carroll is a Marine Corps Reserve officer who has worked at Anduril, a defense contractor that specializes in autonomous systems.He was also infamously fired by the Biden regime for allegedly creating a hostile environment. Before his termination, he served as chief operating officer of the Pentagon’s former...

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a $5-million verdict that E. Jean Carroll won against Donald Trump when a jury found the U.S. president-elect liable for sexually abusing and later defaming the former magazine columnist. . . . . The May 2023 verdict stemmed from an incident around 1996 in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan, where Carroll said Trump raped her, and an October 2022 Truth Social post where Trump denied Carroll’s claim as a hoax. Though jurors in federal court in Manhattan did not find that Trump committed rape, they awarded the former Elle...

George Stephanopoulos was repeatedly told by his executive producer not to “use the word rape” before going on the air to discuss Donald Trump but the ABC News anchor ignored the warning — a decision that cost the network $16 million, The Post has learned. Parent company Disney’s capitulation last week in the defamation lawsuit by Trump against ABC News and Stephanopoulos shocked media and legal experts, but the damning revelation could help explain why Mouse House CEO Bob Iger signed off on the settlement so quickly. The “This Week” host uttered that Trump was “liable for rape” while discussing...

SOUTHLAKE, Texas — Southlake's Carroll Independent School District headed back to class on Tuesday, and for some students, it cost a little extra. Carroll this year raised the price of its school bus pass to $350 for the full year, or $205 for the fall semester, per student. Family pass prices were set at $730 for the full year or $415 for the fall semester. While Carroll offered a discounted rate if passes were purchased before July 17 -- $325 for the year, $180 for the semester, per student, and $705 for the year or $390 for the semester, per...

Roberta Kaplan, a prominent lawyer best known for ending the ban on gay marriage and her advocacy work for sexual assault victims, is leaving the law firm she formed in 2017. Kaplan’s exit from Kaplan Hecker & Fink comes following reports to the New York Times from those who worked with her that she mistreated lawyers and cultivated an unprofessional office culture. She allegedly insulted employees, made inappropriate comments about their looks, and threatened their careers. Her lawyers denied those allegations and said Kaplan and her firm took allegations of workplace misconduct seriously. “There is nothing more unremarkable than trial...

Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll have asked a federal appeals court to expedite Donald Trump’s appeal of the verdict in their first trial in which a jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after finding Trump liable for defamation and battery in May 2023. Carroll wants to see the oral arguments for the appeal scheduled to take place by July, arguing that the former president will try to further delay the proceedings, using his ongoing criminal trial or busy campaign schedule as an excuse. The motion with the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals filed Tuesday cites Trump’s numerous attempts...

A federal judge rejected former President Trump’s latest attempt for a new trial, upholding the verdict and $83.3 million award in his defamation case against writer E. Jean Carroll. In a written opinion, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Trump’s arguments are “without merit.” “Mr. Trump’s malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people. They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll’s health and safety,” Kaplan wrote. A jury in January ordered him to pay $83.3 million to Carroll after Kaplan found he was liable for defamation. Last month,...

A federal judge denied former President Donald Trump's request to delay enforcement and ordered him to pay E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million by Monday or post bond, according to a filing on Thursday evening. A federal jury in January decided Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll more than $83 million in damages after he denied allegations he raped her in the 1990s. The jury decided Trump must pay $18.3 million in compensatory damages, and $65 million in punitive damages. Trump has appealed the decision. But on Thursday, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan demanded Trump pay the damages by Monday.

Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll expressed “very serious concerns” Thursday that she won’t be able to collect the $83 million from former President Trump that a jury awarded in Carroll’s defamation lawsuit last month, citing Trump’s various legal woes. “He simply asks the Court to ‘trust me’ and offers, in a case with an $83.3 million judgment against him, the court filing equivalent of a paper napkin; signed by the least trustworthy of borrowers,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, wrote in court papers. The new filing responds to Trump’s demand that his trial judge delay enforcing the eight-figure sum as the...

Former President Donald Trump’s legal team filed a motion on Friday seeking a stay on the execution of an $83 million judgment against him for 30 days to allow for post-trial motions that may impact the penalty figure. The motion, citing Rule 62 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, asks for either an “unsecured” or “partially secured” stay of the court’s Feb. 8 judgment until 30 days after the resolution of President Trump’s post-trial motions. The motion requests to grant President Trump the right to “post a bond in an appropriate fraction of the amount of the judgment.” The...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), who voted twice to convict former President Trump on impeachment charges, is ruling out voting for Trump in 2024, citing a court’s finding that the former president sexually abused E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. Romney’s announcement that he won’t vote for Trump isn’t surprising. But it does show him sharpening his rhetoric against the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination by saying the reason for his opposition is a Manhattan jury’s finding last year that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll, awarding her $5 million in damages. A New...

In 2019, a strange woman named E. Jean Carroll accused Donald Trump of raping her in a changing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Midtown Manhattan. Trump called her crazy, and a jury found him liable for both sexually abusing her and defaming her with the “crazy” talk. Last week, a New York jury decided Carroll deserves $83 million for defamation. Here are 25 reasons why that’s nuts. 1) Carroll has said rape is “sexy” She backs up this insane statement with, “Think of the fantasies” (which my wife and I can’t stop saying to each other). For...

New York will expand its legal definition of rape to include various forms of nonconsensual sexual contact, under a bill signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday. The state’s current limited definition was a factor in writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual abuse and defamation case against former President Donald Trump. The jury in the federal civil trial rejected the writer’s claim last May that Trump had raped her in the 1990s, instead finding the former president responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse. The current law defines rape as vaginal penetration by a penis. The new law...

A lawyer for Donald Trump on Tuesday backed off her suggestion that the judge who oversaw E. Jean Carroll's two successful civil defamation trials against the former U.S. president might have had a conflict of interest. In a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba said she was satisfied that the judge and Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related, did not have a "mentor-mentee relationship" when they worked at the same law firm three decades ago.... "The point of my January 29 letter was to verify whether the information contained in the...

Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she absolutely trusted the jury’s $83 million verdict for E. Jean Carroll in her case against former President Donald Trump. Anchor Kristen Welker said, “Let’s talk about the court cases. On Friday, a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages for defamation. This was a year after a different jury found him liable for sexual abuse. You have said, and you repeated here, maybe it’s fair, maybe it’s not. Let me just ask you, on the substance...

Donald Trump’s lawyers will use an “insane” and previously unknown “conflict of interest” between E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer and the judge presiding over her defamation case against the former president as the basis of their appeal seeking to toss the eye-popping $83.3 million jury verdict, The Post has learned. Trump lawyer Alina Habba said she was unaware Manhattan federal Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan worked together in the early 1990s at the same powerhouse white-shoe law firm until Saturday, when asked about it by Post columnist Charles Gasparino, who was told by a source that the judge...

Donald Trump's lawyers intend to appeal his staggering $83.3 million defamation lawsuit loss to E. Jean Carroll by arguing there was an 'insane' conflict of interest at the heart of the case. The former president's legal team are set to appeal on the grounds there was a conflict of interest between Carroll's lawyer and the judge presiding over her case. Trump's firebrand attorney Alina Habba claimed she was unaware that Judge Lewis Kaplan and Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan - who are not related - worked together in the early 1990s, with the judge serving as her 'mentor', reports the New...

NEW YORK — A federal jury ordered former President Trump to pay $83.3 million for defaming E. Jean Carroll when Trump in 2019 denied the longtime advice columnist’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her decades earlier. It marks the second time Carroll has won damages from Trump at trial, with the new total adding to a $5 million verdict last year finding Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her over a separate comment. Carroll’s latest trial became intertwined with the heat of the early primary contests, beginning the day after Trump’s historic win in the Iowa caucuses and...

The dress that E. Jean Carroll — the woman who has sued former President Donald Trump for defamation for denying her claims that he sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the early 1990’s — claims she wore during the alleged attack did not exist at the time, Trump’s lawyer pointed out. Carroll’s second defamation trial against Trump is underway. Notably, Trump is not facing criminal charges in these cases. Carroll first went public with her story in 2019, posing for a cover of New York Magazine in the Donna Karan blazer dress that she claims she...

Former President Donald Trump turned up in Manhattan federal court Wednesday for a second day in a row, as a jury is set to decide how much he must pay in damages to E. Jean Carroll, after he was found liable last year of both defaming the magazine writer in 2022, and sexually abusing her in the ’90s. *** The “Ask E. Jean” columnist is asking for more than $10 million in damages. That’s on top of $5 million that jurors last spring ordered Trump to cough up. *** Donald Trump threw his hands in the air and said he'd...