Judge Kaplan said outright Trump sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. Republicans don't seem to care.

While Republicans work overtime using half-baked conspiracy theories to paint President Joe Biden as some global criminal mastermind, the GOP’s own leading presidential primary candidate was in a Manhattan courtroom Thursday where a federal judge said the following before allowing former President Donald Trump to testify:

“Mr. Trump in fact sexually abused Ms. Carroll by forcibly and without her consent inserting his fingers into her vagina. Mr. Trump cannot offer any evidence or make any argument before the jury disputing or undermining those determinations.”

That was U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, referring to a jury’s verdict last year that found Trump sexually abused and defamed writer E. Jean Carroll. The message was clear: These facts are not up for debate, and Trump would not be allowed to dispute them.

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The Thursday hearing was the tail end of a second defamation trial involving Carroll, one in which a jury will determine how much more Trump should pay Carroll in damages. In a separate trial last year, he was ordered to pay her $5 million.

To be clear, the so-called party of law and order has as its far-and-away leading presidential candidate a man whom a jury has definitively found “forcibly and without her consent” inserted his fingers into a woman, then later denied it while relentlessly defaming her.

If President Joe Biden walked out of the White House with one shoe untied, Fox News and the entire right-wing media as well as most Republican members of Congress would be apoplectic. They are laser-focused on impeaching Biden on the grounds of ... something? Republicans can’t produce a lick of evidence to justify the never-ending howling that the president is a crook.

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So justice is rigged only when it relates to Trump being held accountable?

Yet here is their guy – Trump – sitting in a courtroom while a federal judge says it is a fact that he sexually abused Carroll.

We have heard Trump on the “Access Hollywood” tapes saying: “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. ... Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

Yet somehow these loathsome, violent facts get memory-holed by the pious souls who hold Trump up as a political hero sent to save America from tyranny.

The jury must be out to get him! The trial must be rigged!

But wholly unsubstantiated accusations against Biden? Well, those are for-sure true. And if a jury ever found Biden guilty or liable of anything, then that jury and that judge would be absolutely legitimate, right?

I'm betting on Biden in 2024. Democrats need to pull themselves together and remember: Biden is still better than Trump

Face facts: Trump sexually abused a woman. Don't lie to yourself.

It takes a mental and moral contortionist to look at the facts on display and declare: Trump is A-OK!

If you love the guy, fine. But if you're going to support him, if you're going to vote for him, if you're going to be one of the people who stand by his side, at least be honest about who he is before suggesting he was sent by God to save us all.

“Mr. Trump in fact sexually abused Ms. Carroll by forcibly and without her consent inserting his fingers into her vagina.”

That’s what the judge said Thursday. That’s who Trump is. That's who you're choosing if you vote for him.

And that should never, ever be forgotten or overlooked.

Follow USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke on X, formerly Twitter, @RexHuppke and Facebook facebook.com/RexIsAJerk

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump sexually abused E. Jean Carroll, judge says. GOP doesn't care