Trump Will Probably Be Forced to Listen to the Revolting Access Hollywood Tape in Court

A federal judge ruled Friday that the infamous Access Hollywood tape in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women without their consent can be used as evidence in the defamation trial brought by a woman accusing him of rape.

Writer E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump for defamation and sexual assault. Trump has rejected the rape allegation and repeatedly argued that the 2005 recording of him was just “locker-room talk,” and thus irrelevant to the case.

But Judge Lewis Kaplan determined otherwise. “In this case, a jury reasonably could find, even from the Access Hollywood tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood tape that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he had attempted to do so,” he wrote in his decision.

Kaplan also ruled that testimony from two other women who accuse Trump of sexually assaulting them can be introduced as evidence in the trial. “Most of the evidence that Mr. Trump seeks to keep from the trial jury is to the effect that Mr. Trump allegedly has abused or attempted to abuse women other than Ms. Carroll in ways that are comparable to what he allegedly did to Ms. Carroll,” he wrote in his decision. “In other words, Ms. Carroll offers evidence to show that Mr. Trump has a propensity for such behavior.”

Carroll accused Trump in her 2019 memoir of raping her in the Manhattan Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s. She has sued him twice for defamation: first in 2019, when he said she made up the rape allegation to promote her book, and again in November for posts he made about her on social media. She isn’t alone: At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual harassment or assault since the 1970s, all of which he has denied.

The Access Hollywood tape, from a 2005 taping of the show, caught Trump on a hot mic saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy.” It became public in 2016, just days before his second debate against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

Now, it seems, Trump will soon have to hear the tape replayed to him in court. Kaplan has set the trial date for April 25.

Finally, after decades, the law might be catching up with Donald Trump. The invitation to him to testify next week from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg signals, according to many reports, that Bragg’s investigation into the Stormy Daniels matter is winding down and that an indictment of Trump may be imminent. The indictment would be for breaking election and business record laws by allegedly paying $130,000 in hush money to Daniels and subsequently covering it up.

Not his biggest crime, by a long shot. I’d rank it about fifth at best (fomenting an insurrection, accepting foreign help during a campaign, ordering a state official to “find” 11,780 votes, all the tax stuff over many decades, for starters). But even so, a felony.

Trump denies it, of course. He claims he had no interest in Stormy Daniels (whom he refers to as “Horseface”). It’s all a “Witch-Hunt,” like all the other hoaxes. His statement mentioned George Soros, the “Radical Left media,” Hunter Biden, and violent crime (although not the violent crimes allegedly committed by him, as in against his first wife and E. Jean Carroll).

The law grinds slowly. Politics, however, like Niagara Falls, never stops. So what are the politics of this? It likely has a marginally positive impact for Trump in a GOP presidential primary. It gives him another target, something else to whine about. I doubt his opponents will really be able to attack him over it; they’ll just sound like they’re defending the corrupt, Soros-backed, radical-left deep state.

One little-examined question, however, is whether an indicted Trump draws an anti-Trump Republican primary vote to the polls. For example, there are about 5.3 million registered Republicans in Florida. In the 2016 primary (the most recent competitive one), about 2.3 million people voted. That’s not bad, for a primary. Still, it means 57 percent of Republicans didn’t vote, and we can reasonably assume, because all the political science says so, that the primary voters were more extreme ideologically than nonvoters. So if half a million or so less-MAGA-oriented Republicans come out in a primary to vote against Trump, he loses. He maybe loses in that state to Ron DeSantis anyway, but the basic formula repeats elsewhere.

Anyway. Just reading his crazy statement is a chilling reminder of what life was like when we had to pay attention to that maniac every day. He’s just the most poisonous person ever. What a joyous day it would be if he were actually hauled off to a jail cell.

Not even a full day after the Senate overwhelmingly voted to overturn Washington, D.C.’s criminal code updates, Republicans are now pushing for D.C. officers to be able to put people in chokeholds and more easily hide their body camera footage.

Republican Representatives Andrew Clyde and Andrew Garbarino introduced a House resolution Thursday targeting criminal justice and policing reforms made in the aftermath of a string of police killings, including the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

The duo is specifically targeting D.C.’s Comprehensive Policing and Justice Reform Emergency Amendment Act of 2022, Axios reports. The D.C. legislation, which passed the City Council last year but is now being reviewed by Congress, enacts an array of reforms, such as outlawing the use of neck restraints, like that used by Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin to kill Floyd in May 2020. The bill also calls to make body camera footage of officer-caused deaths or serious uses of officer force more accessible to the public.

The D.C. legislation also seeks to expand membership and inclusion on governing bodies like the Police Complaints Board and Use of Force Review Board. It would also ban employment of new officers if they were previously determined by agencies to have committed serious misconduct or to have been forced out of previous roles for “disciplinary reasons.”

Some of the policies, like banning police neck restraints, had been enacted through temporary legislation since the summer of 2020. But all these were to be codified by the  broader reform package that Republicans are now vying to overturn. Axios reports that the resolution to overturn such baseline reforms already has 15 co-sponsors.

While this new GOP effort in favor of chokeholds and against democratically approved reforms may seem particularly brazen, it’s clearly about momentum. Just yesterday, a successful right-wing-driven campaign against D.C. updating its 100-year-old criminal codes led to 81 senators voting to overrule the criminal code updates.

The updated criminal codes were even more modest than the police reforms now being challenged; they mainly dusted off archaic standards and effectively made it easier for courts to prosecute crimes. But overturning these mild policies clearly emboldened Republicans to go a step further. 

A Republican lawmaker in Texas has introduced a bill to appoint a state special prosecutor to handle abortion law violations, among other issues, The Washington Post’s Caroline Kitchener reported Thursday.

The bill, introduced in the state House of Representatives Wednesday, would let the state Supreme Court appoint a special prosecutor to handle violations of Texas election laws, human trafficking cases, and violations of the state’s abortion laws.

Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Texas has banned abortion after six weeks, before many people even know they are pregnant. There are no exceptions for rape or incest, and only a few to save the life of the pregnant person. Individuals are also allowed to sue anyone who provides abortion care or helps someone get an abortion, in what’s known as the state’s vigilante law.

But apparently not satisfied with that, Texas Republicans have begun to introduce bill after bill to curb access to abortion, despite the fact that six out of 10 Texas voters say they support abortion in all or most cases.

One lawmaker introduced a bill in February that would compel internet providers in Texas to block websites that sell or provide information on how to obtain abortion pills. Just last week, another official introduced a bill that would ban credit card companies from processing transactions for abortion pills. Both measures are aimed at cutting off a crucial resource in maintaining access to safe abortion.

Texas is not the only state to ignore what constituents actually want when it comes to abortion laws. Georgia Republicans have introduced a bill that would classify abortion as homicide, despite almost two-thirds of Georgia voters already objecting to current abortion restrictions. A Kentucky lawmaker also introduced a bill classifying abortion as homicide, even though the state voted to protect abortion access during the midterm elections.

The most egregious example is Kansas, where residents voted in August to keep abortion protections in the state constitution. Lawmakers responded by introducing legislation that would let individual cities and counties ban the procedure, a blatant attempt to override the will of the people.

Writer Jessica Valenti pointed out that the latest Texas legislation could be how anti-abortion lawmakers make sure their agenda gets carried out. She noted that many district attorneys are refusing to pursue cases that criminalize abortion, so a special prosecutor for abortion law violations would make sure people are punished for getting the procedure.

One such attorney to take a principled stand against abortion prosecutions was Andrew Warren, a state attorney in Florida who had signed a joint statement with other elected prosecutors the day Roe was overturned, stating “our firm belief that prosecutors have a responsibility to refrain from using limited criminal legal system resources to criminalize personal medical decisions,” such as abortion or transgender health care.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis fired Warren for signing the statement.

President Joe Biden unveiled a $6.8 trillion budget on Thursday that would expand support for poor and middle-class Americans—and tax the rich to help pay for it.

“Folks, let me tell you what I value with the budget I’m releasing today,” he said at an event in Philadelphia. “I value everyone having an even shot. Not just labor, but small-business owners, farmers, so many of the people [who] hold the country together who have been basically invisible for a long time.”

The proposed budget includes hundreds of billions of dollars each for childcare assistance, health coverage assistance, home care for the elderly and disabled, paid leave for workers, free community college and prekindergarten, and homeowners’ and renters’ assistance. The plan is a blueprint of Biden’s priorities as he prepares—presumably—to run for reelection.

Biden said his plan would reduce the federal deficit by $3 trillion over the next 10 years, primarily by increasing taxes on wealthy Americans and corporations. He would also increase payroll and income taxes on single filers who make more than $400,000 a year and raise the corporate tax rate from 21 to 28 percent (in 2017, Donald Trump reduced it from 35 percent).

Biden already previewed another part of the plan earlier this week: extending Medicare into the 2050s, a direct challenge to Republicans who want to slash funding for the program. His budget would let Medicare negotiate prices for a wider range of prescription drugs, an expansion of part of the Inflation Reduction Act. The money saved by negotiating drug prices would then be reinvested in the Medicare trust fund.

The budget would also quadruple a newly implemented tax on corporate stock buybacks and eliminate tax incentives for the oil and gas industry, forcing companies to invest their funds back into the economy, instead of keeping money within their own organizations.

With Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, this budget doesn’t stand a chance of becoming reality. The GOP has made clear they are willing to hold the debt ceiling hostage in order to cut costs in the federal budget—though they have not said exactly how they propose to cut costs. Some Republicans have hinted at cutting Medicare and Social Security, then denied this intent following backlash.

Senator Rick Scott, who came under particular fire from Biden for a proposal to sunset Medicare every five years, immediately criticized the president’s budget.

Biden’s “budget should be a wake-up call for the American people,” the Florida Republican tweeted. “He isn’t concerned about reducing the debt or lowering inflation. He’s focused on throwing money at his woke agenda.”

Democrats, including Biden, have said they refuse to compromise on the debt ceiling, setting up a protracted battle. But if the debate drags out too long, the United States could be in economic peril. The government hit the debt ceiling in January and could default on its debt by the summer if the cap isn’t raised, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.