WASHINGTON: In a vivid illustration of how broken and partisan American politics and judiciary has become, an appeals court in California ordered adult entertainer Stormy Daniels to pay more than $121,000 in legal fees reimbursement to former President Donald Trump in a 2018 defamation suit she lost. The ruling came hours after prosecutors in New York charged Trump with a 34-count felony accusing him falsifying business records while allegedly paying her $130,000 in hush-money to buy her silence for a one-night stand.
The California court award, obtained by Indian-American attorney Harmeet Dhillon, whose law firm represented Trump in the case, is unrelated to the merit or otherwise of the New York case, but it prompted Trump and his followers to claim the criminal indictment was a political hit job and miscarriage of justice. The former President returned to his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Tuesday evening after pleading not guilty in the New York case to launch what was virtually a campaign speech before loyal followers, raging that it was partisan hatchet job, and attacking the prosecutors and the judge hearing the case.
In a furious 25-minute speech, Trump unloaded on Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, calling him a “criminal,” and went after Judge Juan Merchan and his family, alleging he was a “Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and a family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris.” He was alluding to Judge Merchan’s daughter Loren, who is reportedly a partner in Authentic Campaigns, a progressive digital firm that has worked on Democratic campaigns. Loren also worked as the digital director for Kamala Harris’ 2020 presidential campaign from February 2019 until December 2019, according to her LinkedIn profile.
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In pics: The day former US President Donald Trump was arrested
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<p> Former President Donald Trump was charged in court on Tuesday with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, as prosecutors accused him of paying two women to suppress their accounts of sexual encounters with him.<br /></p>
<p>Donald Trump entered the courthouse surrounded by Secret Service agents. Trump’s motorcade traveled from Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan, tracked by numerous helicopters.<br /><br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>While he waved in the direction of his supporters upon arriving at the courthouse at 1.30 pm, Trump left in his motorcade about two hours later with little fanfare. By then, the crowd at the park had shrunk and bystanders seemed unaware of his departure.<br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>From his motorcade, Trump posted on social media: “Heading to Lower Manhattan, the Courthouse. Seems so SURREAL – WOW, they are going to ARREST ME. Can’t believe this is happening in America.”</p>
<p>Donald Trump sat solemnly in a New York City courtroom Tuesday as prosecutors charged him with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in a hush money investigation. The first former president to be charged with crimes pleaded not guilty on all counts.</p>
<p style=”color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13.3333px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;”>A few photographers were allowed to capture the drama of the 76-year-old’s initial presence in the stiflingly hot room, as the one-time White House resident wearing a blue suit and red tie greeted their lenses with steely eyes.<br /></p>
<p>Trump surrendered to Bragg’s office before the arraignment began in Justice Juan Merchan’s court. At an arraignment, a defendant hears charges and can enter a plea. Trump was fingerprinted but no mugshot photo was taken, according to a Twitter post by a New York Times reporter.<br /></p>
<p>Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said during the hearing: “He is absolutely frustrated, upset and believes that there is a great injustice happening in this courtroom today.”</p><br /><br /><br />
<p>The Manhattan grand jury convened by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg that indicted Trump heard evidence about a $130,000 payment made to Daniels in the waning days of the 2016 presidential campaign.<br /></p>
<p>A photo taken by a photographer in the courtroom authorized by the judge showed Trump sitting at the defense table, flanked by his lawyers. Trump’s lawyers had urged the judge to block any videography, photography and radio coverage, arguing it would worsen “an already almost circus-like atmosphere.”<br /></p>
<p>On a cool and sunny early spring day in the most-populous US city, Trump supporters and detractors were separated by barricades set up by police to try to keep order, though there were some confrontations.<br /></p>
<p>Hundreds of Trump supporters, at a park across from the Manhattan courthouse, cheered and blew whistles, outnumbering his detractors. The Trump critics held signs including one of Trump dressed in a striped jail uniform behind bars and another that read, “Lock Him Up.”<br /></p>
<p>Trump left the Manhattan courthouse after his arraignment on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Trump did not answer a reporter’s shouted question about the charges as he quickly left the courtroom where the hearing was held.<br /></p>
<p>Donald Trump lashed out on Tuesday at New York prosecutor Alvin Bragg for bringing criminal charges against him and declared himself the victim of election interference without offering evidence.<br /></p>
<p>Trump spent about two hours inside the building for booking and the arraignment where he learned the details of the criminal charges he faces while running a third presidential campaign.<br /><br /><br /></p>
<p>Trump accused Manhattan District Attorney Bragg of being out to get him “before he knew anything about me.” He said the judge in the case, Juan Merchan, is “a Trump-hating judge.” But he did not offer any evidence to support his claim that they were taking their actions in order to undermine his White House bid.<br /></p>
<p>Merchan also warned Trump that he could be removed from the courtroom if he is disruptive, but Trump spoke only a few times to respond to questions. He’s next due in court in December.<br /></p>
All this appears unrelated to the suit that Stormy Daniels lost, which goes back to 2018 and centers on her claim that Trump defamed her by publicly ridiculing her allegation that an unknown man threatened her and her daughter over her purported affair with Trump.
Daniels claimed that shortly after she began cooperating with a magazine for a story about her alleged affair, an unnamed man had approached her saying “Leave Trump alone. Forget the story” and “That’s a beautiful little girl. It’d be a shame if something happened to her mom,” in reference to her infant daughter. Trump mocked her claims in a 2018 tweet, claiming that man was “non-existent” and the charge was “a total can job,” prompting the defamation suit, which Daniels now says was initiated by her former attorney Michael Avenatti against her wishes.
A court dismissed the case and ruled that Trump’s tweet constituted “rhetorical hyperbole,” and ordered Daniels to pay Trump’s legal fees. In a tweet, Dhillon, whose firm represented Trump in the case, congratulated him “on this final attorney fee victory in his favor this morning.”
“Collectively, our firm obtained over $600,000 in attorney fee awards in his favor in the meritless litigation initiated by Stormy Daniels,” Dhillon, who tweets under the handle @pnjaban said. The Chandigarh-born Dhillon lost an inner-party election in January to head the Republican National Committee, going down 51-111 to incumbent Ronna McDaniel.
While all this was happening in New York and California, in a further illustration of the politicisation of the judiciary and the legal system, voters in Wisconsin on Tuesday chose to reverse the political and ideological direction of their state by electing a liberal candidate to the State Supreme Court, flipping majority control from conservatives.
In a statewide election watched nationwide amid the tumult in New York, California and Florida, Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal Milwaukee County judge, defeated Daniel Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who sought a return to the bench by around 10 points. The result is expected to reverse the state’s abortion ban and end the use of gerrymandered legislative maps drawn by Republicans.
In a system inherited from colonialists, judges and district attorneys in US are elected, rather than nominated, in the questionable belief that elected officials are less likely to be partisan than nominated or appointed ones. It hasn’t always worked out that way; both nominated judges (at the federal level) and elected ones (at the state level) typically hew to the ideological orientation of the party they choose to align with.
