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You're watching the Legal Breakdown. Glenn, just days ago, we had an explosive piece of news when even the Supreme Court refused to weigh in and help Donald Trump not pay the $5 million that he owed Eugene Carroll. Well, his team has asked Eugene Carroll's team to give them a delay. He asked the court to give them a delay. We finally have a decision on that on that request. Can you explain what just happened?
Yeah, it looks like Donald Trump is running out of rope and it looks like Judge Kaplan, who presided over both Eugene Carroll defamation trials, is just about done with Donald Trump's ridiculous attempts to delay one after another. Let me first set up his most recent attempt to delay. Now, remember, Eugene Carroll whooped Donald Trump's butt in the trial court, and a jury awarded her uh $5 million for Donald Trump having sexually assaulted and defamed her. Eugene Carroll then whooped Donald Trump's butt in the court of appeals. And then Donald Trump, you know, continued to delay trying to have to pay the $5 million money judgment by saying, "Wait, wait, wait. I'm gonna get the Supreme Court to review and undo that uh jury award against me." And the Supreme Court just recently said, "No, Donald, we are not accepting the case for review and we're certainly not undoing that jury award." So really, you would think there's nowhere left to go, right?
Well, leave it to Donald Trump and his lawyers to come up with one more attempt to try to, you know, keep from having to pay the $5 million he owes Eugene Carroll. They said, "Whoa, well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I now have a new lawyer," says Donald Trump. "My new lawyer needs time to get up to speed on the case." Well, Brian, there are a couple of problems with that. And I think Judge Kaplan sensed those problems. One, there is no more case. Donald Trump lost at every turn. And he said, "Well, but what I want to do is ask the Supreme Court to change its mind." It's something called a petition for reconsideration. Guess what? The Supreme Court is not going to say, "You know what, Donald? We were wrong. We really should have accepted the case for review and ruled in your favor." I I have not done a search, a legal search, but I'm not sure the Supreme Court has ever accepted a case for review, you know, on a petition for reconsideration. Why? They would have to decide that what they just did was dead wrong. Judges don't often do that. Um, I'm not saying it's never happened.
So, here's the other thing. The reason Donald Trump now says he needs a new lawyer is because the lawyer who represented him in the E. Jean Carroll appeal in this case is now a judge, courtesy of Donald Trump appointing him to the federal bench, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, a guy named Justin Smith, who, you know, I looked at his experience, and I don't think he is equipped or adequately experienced to be an Eighth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals judge. But you know what, Brian? Here's a little fun fact about Judge Smith. Fun for Donald Trump, but not fun for the American people or the health of our democracy. Do you know how many Donald Trump lawyers are now occupying the upper echelons of the federal government? Justin Smith is a federal circuit court judge. Emile Bo, one of Donald Trump's prior defense attorneys, is a federal court judge. Todd Blanch, one of Donald Trump's former and I would argue current defense attorneys, is the acting attorney general, and Trump is trying to make him the permanent attorney general. And then there is John Sauer, who is the solicitor general, another one of Donald Trump's former defense attorneys. And John Sauer was the one who argued in front of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals that a president could go so far as to send Seal Team Six to assassinate his political rivals, and he very likely could not be criminally prosecuted for it. And now let's bring this full circle. You know what lawyer was assisting John Sauer in making that horrific, you know, murderous argument that a president should get to murder people with immunity from prosecution? Well, the person, one of the attorneys who uh assisted John Sauer in that was Justin Smith. So, we've now come full circle.
So, where we stand right now is Judge Kaplan said, "You know what? I'm putting Trump and his lawyers on an expedited schedule in accordance with Eugene Carroll's lawyers' request, and you have until July 7th, Donald and your lawyers, to make whatever argument you want to make as to why I shouldn't immediately, you know, go about dispersing the funds." And we'll talk about how much the uh jur the judgment is now up to given the compounding interest to disperse the funds forthwith. So now the next thing we have because there always seems to be another court filing. These things almost seem never to go final. On July 7th, Trump's legal team will have to file its last gasp at trying to convince Judge Kaplan to hold off dispersing the funds to Eugene Carroll. And within three days of that, I don't even know that Eugene Carroll's lawyers will need three days to respond, but within three days of that, E. Jean Carroll's lawyers can file a reply to whatever Donald Trump's lawyers file. And then it is ultimate judgment time. And I predict at my own peril that Eugene Carroll will very soon get those monies distributed to her that a jury award her awarded her now three years ago.
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What about the $83.3 million? Because, and and you and I have spoken about this before, but it's worth bringing up again. You know, obviously Trump is not going quietly into the night, right? Like when it comes to any money judgment, if he's willing to pull out all the stops here for this $5 million judgment, something tells me that when it comes to $83.3 million, he's not going to be willing to just give it up. And so where do we stand on that judgment? And how does Trump losing all of these cases, getting every um avenue that he was able uh to try and employ, all of those are closed off at this point? What kind of um an impact does that have on his ability to potentially win uh some type of reversal on the $83.3 million ruling?
>> Yes. So O'Brien, not unlike the $5 million case, the $83.3 million case is working its way up through the court system, the appeals process. And the last gasp there will very likely be Donald Trump again trying to persuade the Supreme Court that they should accept it for review and undo the $83 million jury verdict. But here's the thing, the issues that are presented in that case are almost identical to the issues presented in the $5 million case. Most directly, Judge Kaplan ruled that two of the other women who alleged Donald Trump sexually assaulted them were permitted to testify about what Trump did to them because it was relevant to whether he also uh assaulted, sexually assaulted Eugene Carroll. And guess what? That ruling was upheld by first of all the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals. And then the Supreme Court in the $5 million case said, "No, that is not a basis for us to accept review of the case." And virtually identical issues are in the $83 million case. Judge Kaplan presided over both cases. The parties, plaintiff and defendant, were the same in both cases. The evidentiary rulings were largely the same. So, I think that one is also on the same path as the $5 million judgment. And Donald Trump will very likely not only have to pay out on the first judgment, but before too long, he'll be making the same ridiculous arguments he's making now, but he will probably have to pay pay out on the $83.3 million judgment.
And here is the wonderful thing. Wonderful for Eugene Carroll. Um, you know, her lawyers didn't say when the jury returned that verdict, you know, we are going to use the vehicles available to us to force to compel Donald Trump to pay right now, not await the appellate process. The lawyers, Eugene Carroll's lawyers said, you know what, judge, that's okay. We're not going to insist on immediate payment, but we are going to insist on a court order that interest be accruing every day on the money a jury awarded Donald Trump to pay us both the $5 million and the $83 million. So within the next probably week to 10 days, it looks like Donald Trump will be forced to pay on the $5 million jury verdict, and that is presently up to $5,800,000. So it looks like that's the first amount he's actually going to have to pay to Eugene Carroll. And the good thing about it is that those monies were deposited in basically like a court escrow account during the course of the appeal. So there would be a pot from which to satisfy this money judgment when and if Donald Trump lost his appeals. And Donald Trump has now lost his appeals.
And and that's the part I wanted to dig into here because my question was going to be, you know what, if after he has uh exhausted every legal avenue, what if he just decides not to pay? So, can you speak on that pot of money and um how that protects Eugene Carroll in the event that Trump doesn't uh comply?
>> Yeah, in these sort of, you know, large dollar money judgment cases, it's not at all unusual for two things to happen. One, the losing party wants to appeal. And you know, for you know, for better or worse, the appeals process in this country is very sort of detail-oriented, very circumspect, very thoughtful. They cover every angle of the way the trial played out to make sure it was a reliable and just verdict. But Brian, it can take forever. So what the court system has in place is a system by which the losing party that wants to file the appeal, if a money judgment was awarded against them, they can pay into or somehow secure the amount in what is akin to an escrow account that the that the court um presides over so that exactly what you just described won't happen. The losing party runs its case all the way up the appellate chain. They lose all along the way. The Supreme Court refuses to intervene and then they say, "Oh, okay. You know what? I'm judgment proof. I've gone and spent all my money. I have no assets and there's nothing for you to actually take from me." So there, you know, the court system is not so foolish to allow a losing party to orchestrate that kind of a circumstance to avoid paying a money judgment ordered by a jury.
So let's listen. E. Jean Carroll is going to begin to get the money that a jury awarded her. And as I say, the first will be about $5.8 million, but the next one with interest is probably going to be heading up to about $100 million. Which, given all the money that Donald Trump has been earning off of his time as president, uh much of it seems, you know, courtesy of grifting and conflicts of interest that he is taking advantage of, uh um you would think he could probably find a hundred million dollars, you know, strewn in the couch cushions down at Mar-a-Lago.
>> Last question here on that point. Um is that to say that there's already, you know, somewhere between $83 and $100 million in an escrow account for that case that's being, you know, litigated right now?
You know, I don't know how much had to be deposited to secure the kind of right to appeal um just to make sure that Eugene Carroll would be made whole on that $83.3 million judgment. You know, often there are sureties that will step in where, you know, there's a formal process by which a losing party can pay somebody to guarantee that amount, and then if the losing party himself doesn't make good on that amount, then the surety has to come through and pay that amount. So there are different ways you can secure it with real property. Kind of like taking a mortgage out on some real property, and the proceeds of um the loan on your real property can go to satisfy the judgment. There are different ways to orchestrate it. I'm not exactly sure what vehicle they used to secure the $83 million jury verdict. But what I'm confident of is Judge Kaplan and the court system probably has this well in hand, maybe even went a little over and above making sure this amount is secured, given the litigant they knew they were dealing with, Donald Trump.
Well, we will of course stay on top of this and hopefully the next story that we'll be able to report out of this uh whole situation is that Eugene Carroll has $5 million or more than $5 million uh because of this interest that was accruing from Donald Trump, and we can move on to the process by which she will ultimately get her $83.3 million, which as you said, will probably be somewhere in the ballpark of $100 million after all is said and done. So for those who are watching, if you'd like to follow along, the best way to do that is to subscribe to both of our channels. Completely free to do so, but a great way to support our work, to stay on top of the news, and to support independent media. So, those links are right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. I'm Brian Tyler, >> and I'm Glenn Kersner. >> You're watching the Legal Breakdown.