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U.S. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan says that former President Donald J. Trump may be said to have “raped” E. Jean Carroll, even though a jury specifically declined to find that he had done so in his recent civil trial in New York. Aaron Blake of the Washington Post reported the judge’s finding — approvingly, calling it a “clarification”: [Kaplan] says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood. The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against...

I’ve been looking for Donald J. Trump everywhere. Ever since the election of 2020, the man who made me laugh out loud regularly disappeared. He was replaced by some angry bitter guy I didn’t recognize and no longer wanted to listen to. It was sad to watch him get so grumpy. His best attribute was his lightheartedness and penchant for stingy zingers. I don’t know where he went for all this time, but today…. he’s back! I haven’t laughed this hard in a while at anything he’s done, including those God-awful NFT trading cards. rump had to sit for a...

In a court filing, former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried asked to redact the names of the co-signers to his $250 million bail. The filing said the U.S. government has not taken a position on the request and that it's being done to protect the privacy and safety of the sureties. The filing said the two remaining sureties have yet to sign their individual bonds, the amounts of which have not yet been determined, but plan to do so by the Thursday deadline. "In recent weeks, Mr. Bankman-Fried's parents have become the target of intense media scrutiny, harassment, and threats. Among...

Prince Andrew must be questioned under oath by Virginia Giuffre's lawyers in her civil sexual assault case by mid-July next year, a US judge has ruled. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan set the deadline of 14 July 2022 to complete depositions in a scheduling order agreed to by lawyers for Andrew and Ms Giuffre It means the questioning could clash with the Queen's Platinum Jubilee celebrations, which will take place in June. Andrew has vehemently denied allegations he sexually assaulted Ms Giuffre when she was a teenager. Under something known as "Mutual Legal Assistance" (MLA), both prosecutors and the...

Some months after Attorney General Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice signaled it would back former President Donald Trump in a lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, a federal judge refused on Wednesday to let that development prevent the litigation from proceeding in his courtroom. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Trump’s request for a stay of all proceedings, without comment. Carroll claims that the former president defamed her by falsely denying that he raped her in the dressing room of the department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s, but for roughly a year, proceedings have revolved less around her allegations...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department cannot step in to shield President Donald Trump from a libel lawsuit filed by a woman who claims he raped her in a New York City department store more than 20 years ago. The Justice Department had sought to block the lawsuit, filed by former gossip columnist E. Jean Carroll, by arguing that the president was acting in his official capacity when he told White House reporters that she made up the rape story. Carroll sued, claiming that his statements branding her a liar damaged her...