Is $83 Million Enough to Shut Trump Up?

Keeping up with Donald Trump’s court schedule is a dizzying task, since he faces two federal trials, a criminal trial in Georgia, and two separate civil and criminal trials in New York. (Oh, and he’s running for president.) To make it easier to follow along, each Monday we’ll be looking back on all the Trump trial–related developments you might have missed the previous week.

Last week, Trump faced writer E. Jean Carroll in a New York courtroom for the second time in less than a year, and the outcome was a lot more expensive for the former president this time. Trump’s lawyers also joined the motion alleging misconduct by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis while also losing an appeal over a gag order related to the federal election interference case.

After two days of testimony by a handful of witnesses—including Trump, who lasted only about four minutes on the stand—a jury ordered the former president to pay Carroll $83.3 million for defamatory statements he made about her in 2019. Those statements were made shortly after Carroll went public with allegations that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-’90s, and Trump was in the White House at the time. He vehemently denied Carroll’s accusations, telling reporters she was “totally lying” and “I don’t know anything about her.”

This was the second time in less than a year that Trump had faced off with Carroll in a courtroom. Last year, the two sparred over the Carol II lawsuit, which centered on her rape allegations, with a jury awarding Carroll $5 million and finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation. (Here’s a full run-through of both of Carroll’s lawsuits.) That verdict prompted Judge Lewis Kaplan, overseeing both of the Carroll lawsuits, to rule that last week’s Carol I defamation trial needed to determine only how much Trump owed in damages for his 2019 statements.

The trial was short in length but not in drama. Trump showed up to the courtroom, though he was not required to be there, and his attorneys repeatedly frustrated Kaplan. “You are on the verge of spending some time in lockup. Now sit down,” Kaplan ordered Trump attorney Alina Habba at one point, as she argued to have new evidence introduced into the record. Then, when Trump took the witness stand, he still denied Carroll’s accusations, with Kaplan quick to cut off the former president and strike his responses from the record. Trump testified that he had not instructed anyone to hurt Carroll through his defamatory statements: “No, I just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency,” he said.

Carroll’s lawyers emphasized that her reputation had been destroyed since Trump began verbally attacking her in 2019 and detailed the many death threats she’s received. During closing arguments, Roberta Kaplan, one of Carroll’s lawyers, posited to the jury, “It will take an unusually high punitive damages award to have any hope of stopping Donald Trump to have a chance of allowing Ms. Carroll’s life to return to normal.”

After a lawyer for Mike Roman, a co-defendant in the Georgia election interference case, filed a bombshell motion alleging that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is dating Nathan Wade—one of the special prosecutors she hired for her case—Trump’s attorneys last week officially joined that motion. Both co-defendants are requesting that Willis be disqualified from trying the case and want their charges dismissed.

But Trump’s legal team also piled on new allegations against Willis, seizing on a speech she made at an Atlanta church days after news broke about her rumored romantic relationship with Wade. In that speech, Willis said that out of the three special prosecutors she’d hired to work on her team, “they only attack one,” arguing that race was a motivating factor in Roman’s motion. That was uncalled for, claimed Trump’s attorneys, who pushed back that Willis “repeatedly and inappropriately injected race into the case and stoked racial animus by, among other statements, asking God why the defendants were questioning her conduct in hiring a Black man but not his white counterparts.”

Judge Scott McAfee, assigned with overseeing Willis’ case, gave the D.A. a deadline of Feb. 2 to respond to the misconduct allegations and scheduled a full evidentiary hearing for Feb. 15.

The full 11-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that a gag order first issued by Judge Tanya Chutkan in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal election interference case could stay in place, rejecting an appeal by Trump’s attorneys. This gag order was first issued in September at the request of Smith after he noted that Trump was posting thinly veiled threats on his Truth Social account.

Trump’s first appeal of Chutkan’s gag order went to a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit, which left it mostly in place. The panel made a minor tweak, having the gag order apply only if Trump comments about any known or potential witness’ direct participation in the Department of Justice’s election interference case. The judges also said Trump should be allowed to freely speak about Smith in public, including any criticisms of his indictment.

Trump’s attorneys were not completely satisfied with that result, so they requested that the full appeals court rehear the case. Now that the full court has also failed to dismiss Chutkan’s gag order in full, Trump’s attorneys could take the gag order up with the Supreme Court.

Under the former Trump administration, Navarro served as assistant to the president and was director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. Similar to many former Trump advisers and allies, Navarro was a staunch election denier and proudly shared to all who would listen his endorsement of the fake electors scheme to keep Trump in power. (He also detailed the idea in depth in his memoir.) The House Jan. 6 committee ended up subpoenaing Navarro for his testimony and documents, but he claimed executive privilege and refused to cooperate.

In September, Navarro was convicted for contempt of Congress, and last week federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Navarro must serve four months in prison and pay a $9,500 fine for defying the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoena. Navarro is appealing the decision, and Mehta will decide if he can remain jail-free while the appeals process plays out. (Another former Trump aide, Steve Bannon, was also convicted for contempt of Congress for his failure to cooperate with the Jan. 6 committee, but his four-month sentence is currently on pause while the appeals process plays out.)

“The words executive privilege are not magical incantations,” said Mehta at Navarro’s hearing. The judge also noted that other Trump aides and attorneys negotiated with the committee when they were served subpoenas, while Navarro refused to engage. “You’re more than happy to talk to the press about what you did, write it in your book, but not go up to the Hill and talk to Congress,” he said.

Navarro’s lawyers argued that he was confused and genuinely under the impression that Trump had invoked executive privilege. At one point in the hearing, Navarro spoke up to try and defend himself, telling Mehta that he thought his case would serve as precedent for what is and is not allowed when subpoenaing former White House officials. “All they have to do is read the transcript of you here today and they’ll know what to do, sir,” said Navarro. “I didn’t know what to do.”

In the end, Mehta did not buy Navarro’s narrative.