'You're on the verge of spending some time in lock-up': Habba warned as trial resumes
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-habba-e-jean-carroll/

Alina Habba again threatened with 'consequences' as she launches closing arguments
https://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-trial-2667097233/



Habba's closing 'did the seemingly impossible' and made Trump's 'position worse': expert
https://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-trump-2667098379/




'Classless, obnoxious': Legal experts sum up performance of Trump's now infamous attorney
https://www.rawstory.com/classless-obnoxious-alina-habba-s-performance-has/




Alina Habba may have doomed Trump's appeal by 'crossing the line' with judge: legal expert
https://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-dooms-trump-appeal/



Alina Habba's antics make her a candidate for Bar Assoc. disciplinary action: attorney

Tom Boggioni
January 27, 2024 1:36PM ET



Alia Habba (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)





Donald Trump lawyer Alina Habba's "flagrant disregard" for courtroom rules could pave the way for Judge Lewis Kaplan to refer her to the State Bar for a hearing and investigation.

According to former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, the E. Jean Carroll judge would be completely within his rights to ask the New York State Bar Association to review the former president's attorney's conduct after Kaplan repeatedly was forced to admonish her during the two-week trial.

On her Substack platform, Vance suggested that Habba's lack of legal skills and knowledge about the rules of evidence aren't the issue so much as the chaos she repeatedly created in the civil trial she ultimately lost which cost her client $83.3 million on Friday.

RELATED: 'Performative' Alina Habba cost Trump 'an incredible amount of money': ex-GOP official

According to Vance, who called Habba's outbursts "disgraceful," she, "...would not be surprised to see the Judge refer her to the Bar Association for disciplinary action."

Clarifying her reasoning, she explained, "It wasn’t her novice mistakes that were the issue, although they caused a lot of comments. It was her flagrant disregard of the Judge’s decisions about arguments that could and could not be made to the jury. She trod on those rulings despite repeated warnings from the Judge."

Vance added the proper procedure when a lawyer feels the judge erred is to take it up later in an appeal.

ALSO READ: Alina Habba is persona non grata at her Pennsylvania law school

In the case of the combative Habba, the Trump attorney's "repeated strategy was to fight with the Judge. Tell her she couldn’t do something, and she jumped right in anyhow, repeatedly insinuating that Trump didn’t assault Carroll," the former prosecutor wrote.

"The Judge would be well within his rights to let the Bar sort her out. Her lack of respect for the rule of law, which mirrors her client’s, is unacceptable in a lawyer," Vance concluded.

You can read more here.



https://www.rawstory.com/alina-habba-trial-chaos/

 

All rawstory lies.

 

Trump can delay paying full E. Jean Carroll damages until after appeal: report
Lauren Irwin
Sat, January 27, 2024 at 3:01 PM MST·2 min read
3.4k

• 
  

Former President Trump can delay paying leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom">E. Jean Carroll the $83.3 million a jury decided he owes her until after he exhausts all appeal options he has vowed to seek, The New York Times reports.

On Friday, a federal jury in New York ordered Trump to pay Carroll for defaming her in 2019 when he denied her accusation that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

After the decision, he announced he would be appealing the “absolutely ridiculous” ruling.


The former president and business mogul can pay the millions of dollars to the court, which would hold the money while the appeal is pending, notes the Times.

The decision Friday adds to the previous sum of $5 million Trump was ordered to pay Carroll after a verdict found him liable for sexually abusing the columnist and defaming her over a separate comment. Trump appealed the decision last year and avoided paying Carroll the money right away at the time.

Trump also could attempt to secure a bond, which saves him from having to pay her the full amount up front, the Times report noted. He may have to pay a deposit and offer collateral that would come with interest and fees — but it also means he would have to find someone willing to lend him the significant sum of money.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-delay-paying-full-e-220147732.html

 

Now that would be really something if E Jean Carroll established a legal fund for other women to sue Trump for sexual assault and defamation. Because there are a lot of them.





E. Jean Carroll says she plans to use $83 million on 'something Donald Trump hates'
PETER CHARALAMBOUS
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 5:51 AM MST·3 min read
7.8k

• 
  

Three days after a jury awarded her over $83 million for Donald Trump's repeated defamatory statements, columnist leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom">E. Jean Carroll vowed to use the money on "something Donald Trump hates."

"If it'll cause him pain for me to give money to certain things, that's my intent," Carroll told George Stephanopoulos on "Good Morning America," suggesting she would create a "fund for the women who have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump."

After a two-week trial, a jury took less than three hours on Friday to return a verdict that Trump should pay Carroll over $83 million in damages to compensate her for two defamatory statements made by the former president in 2019 after she alleged Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996.


PHOTO: E. Jean Carroll, left, and her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, appear on 'Good Morning American' on Jan. 29, 2024, after a jury awarded Carroll more than $83 million in a civil case against former President Donald Trump. (ABC News)
A separate jury last year found that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her, awarding her $5 million.

Trump has repeatedly denied the allegation since 2019 and attended five days of the defamation trial including testifying to double down on his claims. On Friday, he vowed to appeal the verdict.

Sitting feet from Trump in court for five days, Carroll described that her fears leading up to the trial about interacting with the former president washed away as soon as the trial began.


PHOTO: E. Jean Carroll appears on 'Good Morning American' on Jan. 29, 2024, after a jury awarded her more than $83 million in a civil case against former President Donald Trump. (ABC News)
"It was like he was like nothing, like an emperor without clothes," Carroll said. "All my terror leading up to it, and there he is. He's just something in a suit."

Trump's in-person attendance at the trial – after missing last year's trial – briefly interrupted the proceedings, including when the former president muttered defamatory statements in earshot of the jury or walked out during the closing statement delivered by Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan.


PHOTO: E. Jean Carroll leaves Manhattan Federal Court following the conclusion of her civil defamation trial against former President Donald Trump on Jan. 26, 2024, in New York City. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Kaplan, however, said Trump's behavior only validated the central thesis of her case that Trump is "a bully who can't follow the rules."

"I definitely thought we got a few more million dollars immediately," Kaplan said about Trump walking out of court during her closing statement. "I was like, well, that's worth about $10 million."

A few hours after Trump stormed out of court, the jury delivered their unanimous verdict and $83.3 million award. As the jury left the courtroom, Carroll and her lawyers held hands, exchanging smiles with some of the jurors.


PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump testifies as he takes the stand watched by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan during a civil trial at Manhattan Federal Court in New York City, Jan. 25, 2024, in this courtroom sketch. (Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)
"It made me burst into tears because they met my eyes for the first time," Carroll said about seeing the jurors.

Kaplan added that she is confident they will be able to collect the $83.3 million, explaining that Trump could either pay a bond or deposit the money in full until he appeals.

"I'm pretty confident one way or the other. We might not get it right away. But one way or the other, he owns a lot of real estate. It can be sold. We will collect the judgment," Kaplan said.

While Trump has not mentioned Carroll by name in the days since the verdict, Carroll said that she is not confident the former president will refrain from defaming her, and her lawyer said "all options are on the table" if Trump decides to defame her client again.

"If we have to bring another case, we'll bring another case. It's just going to be more money," Kaplan said.



https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/...plans-83-million-donald-trump-hates-106751516

 

I saw lots of legal experts and especially lawyers saying the same thing during the trial. Habba did a great job of play acting at being a lawyer to please Trump she just blew it time and time again in the actual proceedings. Because she didn't really have a clue of how evidence is presented. And kept defeating her own purpose arguing with the judge.





"Trump doesn't have an appeal": Experts say Trump may fire lawyer after being "burned very severely"
Tatyana Tandanpolie
Mon, January 29, 2024 at 10:13 AM MST·2 min read
4.2k



Alina Habba GWR/Star Max/GC Images/Getty Images

Former President leaving the page." data-wf-tooltip-position="bottom">Donald Trump's appeal of the $83.3 million verdict in the defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll is unlikely to succeed, legal experts say.

"Let me ruin the suspense for everyone. Trump doesn't have an appeal," Nashville lawyer Brian Manookian argued Friday. "I know the talking heads on TV who have never tried a case or appealed a jury verdict have to mention it. Here's why it isn't going to fly."

A person must "preserve a reversible error at the trial level" in order to have a case with merit on appeal, Manookian explained, ultimately blaming Trump's lack thereof on his legal team in the case.

"This is why you hire competent counsel. You need someone who actually knows the rules of evidence and procedure," he said. "Alina Habba had no clue what was occurring throughout the trial. She not only failed to preserve any remote grounds for appeal, like a moron, she repeatedly and unintentionally waived them over and over."

"Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, what she was doing over and over was waiving his ability to appeal over those evidentiary issues," Manookian added, discussing Habba saying "no objection" to exhibits as they were entered into evidence. "Because she is a moron who would rather *play* lawyer than do the research to *be* a lawyer."


Former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman also criticized Habba's courtroom skills during a Sunday MSNBC appearance, dubbing them a "comedy of bumbling errors.

Litman suggested that the former president may consider booting Habba from his legal team after her poor performance in the trial.

"Alina Habba — maybe in [Trump's] own mind is like, 'That's a path I can't go on. I've been burned very severely,'" Litman said, adding later: "I do think part of the rough week he had was having chosen a counsel who doesn't seem to have any, not just chops, but judgment about how you try a case like this when it's already been established and you may not quibble that your client has sexually assaulted the plaintiff and then lied about it."







https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-doesnt-appeal-experts-trump-171304346.html

 

Mark this spot.

"Trump doesn't have an appeal"

 

And guess who was head of the pharmacy?
Rear admiral ronnie jackson.
Appointed by bush, served for all 12 years in the obama administration and half of trumps.
His nickname was "candyman".
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronny_Jackson

Trump nominated him to head the VA but the resistance was enough that jackson withdrew.
Ronnie is now an elected representative for texas.

So apparently Obama was also poppin those pills, eh?

And we all know trump is a real drug/alchohol user.

Fail.

 

Obviously some have very severe reading problems. They can't even see it in the biggest bold. So maybe I can help them out there.


The report covers a period between 2009 and 2018, with a majority of its findings coalescing around 2017- 2019, during the height of the Trump administration.

 

This is something I seriously underestimated. I knew the E Jean Carroll case would make Trump a loser again. But what I didn't see is that it would be seen as a bigger win for women than just a loss for Trump. As a male its easy to fail to understand just how important this case is for all women. First, they live in constant fear of sexual assault. Its part of their existence most men can't even comprehend. And then just as bad or maybe worse is if they get sexually assaulted no one will believe them and/or the male will just get away with it. So women including many on the right were watching this case hoping for once the male would be held accountable for it. And what they saw was Trump and his attorneys using every destructive and misogynist stereotype and lie that should have died out decades ago. She's a liar. She's a whore. She wanted it. She enjoyed it. It benefited her. And that is registering with women all over the country almost like the abortion issue. Carroll and her attorneys are being seen as heroines worth listening to and voting for.

I watched this last night and was amazed at how good Carroll is. And while Trump is too terrified to even utter her name right now I am betting Carroll gets under his skin so much he will go right back to defaming her. And Carroll and her attorneys will go right back to suing him again for it. Because they see this as a war for women and they damn sure intend to win the war.



'He's not there': E. Jean Carroll shocked by 'walrus' Trump's mental fitness

Sarah K. Burris
January 29, 2024 9:49PM ET



Former President Donald Trump appears in court Wednesday for his civil fraud trial at the New York State Supreme Court. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images




E. Jean Carroll thinks that Donald Trump has some mental deficiencies after experiencing him in court.

Speaking to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow with her attorneys, Carroll explained her fears and anxieties seeing Trump for the first time in person so many years later.

"By the way, Rachel, he is not even there," Carroll said. "He's nothing. He is without — he is like a walrus, snorting and like a rhino flopping his — he is not there. That was the surprising thing to me."

Maddow keyed in on Carroll feeling like he was an animal and whether that made him less intimidating.

"No, Rachel, I was terrified," said Carroll. "I was just a beg of sweating corpuscles as we prepared for trial. And four days before the trial, I had an actual breakdown. I lost my ability to speak. I lost my words. I couldn't talk, and I couldn't go on. It was — that's how frightened I was. But oddly, we went into court."

She said that her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, took the lectern, asking her to spell her name for the court.

"And amazingly, I looked out, and he was nothing," she said. "He was nothing. He was a phantom. It was the people around him who were giving him power. He himself was nothing. It was an astonishing discovery for me. He's nothing. We don't need to be afraid of him. He can be knocked down. Twice by these woman right here."

Trump has claimed that he won't give Carroll a "cent" of the jury's order.

See the opener of the interview below or at the link here.




https://www.rawstory.com/trump-e-jean-carroll-walrus-court/

 

'That starts the clock': E. Jean Carroll judge just entered an order on Trump payment

Matthew Chapman
February 8, 2024 5:07PM ET



Trump photo by AFP Photo/Olivier Douliery Carol Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images




The judge in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case has taken a step that puts former President Donald Trump on a timer to post bond for the damages, reported MSNBC legal commentator Lisa Rubin on Thursday.

Carroll sued former President Donald Trump after he called her allegation he raped her in a Manhattan department store a lie, claimed he had no idea who she was, and said she was making it up to sell books. A jury awarded her $83.3 million in the case, which was presided over by Judge Lewis Kaplan.

"Judge Kaplan has at least entered judgment in the second Carroll trial," wrote Rubin on X. "That starts the clock for Trump's post-trial motions and for him to post a bond."

ALSO READ: Alina Habba is persona non grata at her Pennsylvania law school

"Specifically, federal rules governing civil cases stay a plaintiff's execution on a judgment for 30 days after the entry of judgment, which effectively means he has 30 days to provide a bond or other security to lengthen that stay pending an appeal," Rubin continued. "Trump also has 28 days after the entry of judgment to move for a new trial or to 'alter or amend' the judgment."

The judgment affirms the award the jury said Carroll deserves.

All of this comes as Judge Arthur Engoron is still yet to rule on another civil case against Trump: the fraud allegations brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James.

In that case, James is seeking $370 million in fines and the dissolution of the Trump Organization in all of New York.



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-e-jean-carroll-judgment/

 

Right now I am taken back by the level of some peoples levels of tRump derangement syndrome on this site and in the world. The right wants to elevate him to God level either because he says what they wish they had the balls to or because they fear his retribution for defying him, the left wants to demonize everything possible and make it all his fault that other committed criminal acts. Do I think he was responsible for an insurrection? Yes based on the original meaning of the law but I am not a Supreme Court Justice so my opinion does not mean a tinkers fuck. And this pill thing that just came out is no more than obfuscation so that people are not paying attention to real issues, they get too wrapped up in trivial shit to think about the FACTS.
To the left, let that go and allow the courts to do their jobs while you concentrate on getting your guy elected. To the right, if you fervently believe that he did no wrong then urge him to prove it once and for all, stop all of the stalling and just let the truth be told for once. This side versus side bullshit is why this country is now the laughing stock of the world.

 

Shooter doesn't think America is served by either trump or biden being in the oval office.
We need Nikki Haley, shooter thinks.

 

'It's brutal': Shock and awe follows E. Jean Carroll's court response to Trump

Sarah K. Burris
February 29, 2024 3:14PM ET



Writer E. Jean Carroll and former President Donald Trump. Photos by GWR/Star Max/GC Images and Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images




E. Jean Carroll's lawyer on Thursday shot back at Donald Trump's request for a pause in paying his court fines after a jury awarded her over $88 million in two defamation cases — and onlookers said she didn't hold back.

MSNBC host Chris Jansing announced the news. "It is brutal," she said.

"This is page one, 'There is absolutely no basis in law for Trump’s requested relief."

"He simply asks the court to 'trust me' and offers in a case with an $83.3 million judgment against him the court filing equivalent of a paper napkin signed by the least trustworthy of borrowers," the filing continues.

Legal analyst Lisa Rubin explained that it's just the first argument outlined by Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.

"This is an effort by Donald Trump to get an indefinite stay without having to post the kind of appeals bond that we have been discussing not only in this case, but also in the civil fraud trial that the attorney general recently won," Rubin said.

"And, in fact, they bring that civil fraud trial up as one of their concerns about Trump's cash position."

According to a filing Wednesday in the fraud trial, Trump confessed he's broke and needs to start selling off assets if he is to pay his damages, set at $355 million and accumulating substantial interest every day.

"In the absence of a stay on the terms herein outlined, properties would likely need to be sold to raise capital under exigent circumstances," Trump's attorneys wrote. "And there would be no way to recover any property sold following a successful appeal and no means to recover the resulting financial losses from the Attorney General."

ALSO READ: ‘America First’ is Trump first, Russia close second

According to Carroll's lawyer, Trump is trying to get a stay on paying without any security. The way it works now, Trump must put up a bond to secure the payment before he can appeal. Despite telling Carroll's lawyer in a deposition that he had about $400 million in cash, it appears that is not actually true.

"Trump still has an opportunity to brief that, but they're saying, we can see that he is desperate and then going back to the point that you raised, which is they say there is no transparency or trustworthiness when it comes to his financial situation because again and again, we've seen him try to hide the ball with the American people and with the public," Rubin explained.

She noted that Carroll's lawyer cites "everything from the evidence and case that Judge Arthur Engoron decided, same New York civil fraud case, but also to our friend and colleague, Susanne Craig is reporting for the New York Times where she excavated years of Trump's tax returns and other financial information to show that his financial picture was not what he portrayed it to be to the American public."

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance highlighted that Carroll's argument ends by pointing out that Trump's "request for even a reduced bond, as opposed to the full payment, is legally meritless. The bottom line? Trump, the self-proclaimed billionaire, is struggling with the bond and can't float the entire sum."

See the discussion below or at the link here.




https://www.rawstory.com/trump-e-jean-carroll-payments/

 

E. Jean Carroll drops 'one week to pay' threat on Trump as he scrambles for cash

Tom Boggioni
March 1, 2024 9:49AM ET



Writer E. Jean Carroll and former President Donald Trump. Photos by GWR/Star Max/GC Images and Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images




Early Friday morning, writer E. Jean Carroll announced for all the world to see that Donald Trump has yet to cough up the $83.3 million he owes her after she defeated him in two separate civil trials.

Taking to X, Carroll dropped a message to the former president with a simple message that Trump has "one week to pay" on her social media platform, while also linking to a Fortune summary of his courtroom loss to her as well as his other courtroom financial setbacks that have him scrambling to come up with almost a half billion dollars quickly.

Following a report from CNN that the former president is facing a "nightmare" scenario coming up with the money that may force him to sell off assets before the courts ordered them seized, Fortune notes, "Carroll’s attorneys argued in a court filing Thursday that Trump is asking the court to 'simply trust that he’s very rich' and therefore doesn’t need to post a bond guaranteeing he’ll pay the money, while they have 'very serious concerns about Trump’s cash position' and the 'feasibility' of him paying what he owes."

ALSO READ: ‘Grab any cheerleaders?’ Fans decry Trump’s S.C. football appearance as a ‘terrible look’

Questions have been raised about how much cash Trump has on hand combined with the millions he is already paying in legal bills, with the Fortune report pointing out that "Forbes estimates Trump’s net worth at $2.6 billion as of September. That includes just over $400 million in cash and liquid assets—enough to cover Carroll’s judgment alone, but not his total legal fines when combined with his judgment in the fraud case."

You can read more here.



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-e-jean-carroll-2667406739/

 

Of course carroll wants her bucks.
She knows when the appeal is heard she'll be entitled to bupkis.

 

Trump’s White House Was ‘Awash in Speed’ — and Xanax
Under Trump, the White House Medical Unit was “like the Wild West,” and staffers had easy access to powerful stimulants and sedatives, sources tell Rolling Stone
By
Noah Shachtman, Asawin Suebsaeng
March 3, 2024

Then-President Donald Trump speaks in the White House on April 1, 2020 in Washington, D.C. Win McNamee/Getty Images
If you ever looked at the actions of the Trump White House and wondered, ‘Are they on drugs?’ — the answer was, in some cases, yes. Absolutely, yes.

In January, the Defense Department’s inspector general released a report detailing how the White House Medical Unit during the Trump administration distributed controlled substances with scant oversight and even sloppier record keeping. Investigators repeatedly noted that the unit had ordered thousands and thousands of doses of the stimulant modafinil, which has been used by military pilots for decades to stay alert during long missions.

The report didn’t say why so many of those pills had been given out. But for many who served in the Trump White House, the investigation highlighted an open secret. According to interviews with four former senior administration officials and others with knowledge of the matter, the stimulant was routinely given to staffers who needed an energy boost after a late night, or just a pick-me-up to handle another day at a uniquely stressful job. As one of the former officials tells Rolling Stone, the White House at that time was “awash in speed.”




Knowledgeable sources say that samples of the stimulant were passed around for those contributing lines to major Trump speeches, working late hours on foreign policy initiatives, responding to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, coping with the deluge of media inquiries about that investigation, and so much more. (Trump’s campaign did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story.)

Modafinil — also known by its brand name, Provigil — wasn’t the only controlled substance that Trump officials young and old routinely acquired. “It was kind of like the Wild West. Things were pretty loose. Whatever someone needs, we were going to fill this,” one source with direct knowledge of the matter recalls.

The anti-anxiety medication Xanax was also a popular, easy-to-get drug during the Trump years, three sources tell us. Neither Xanax nor its generic, alprazolam, is mentioned in the Pentagon report, which notes that it is not a comprehensive list of the controlled substances ordered during the Trump years. Two people with direct knowledge of the situation recall senior officials getting Xanax from the White House Medical Unit — and sharing it with colleagues.





The Trump administration was well known for its chaotic, often-erratic approach to policymaking — and for its atmosphere of paranoia, where staffers regularly spilled their colleagues’ secrets and bureaucratic factions often spent as much energy attacking one another as addressing matters of state. It’s impossible to know how much of that was fueled by the widespread availability of drugs like Xanax and Provigil. But what’s clear is that there was a breakdown of medical standards and safeguards at the highest levels of the American government; some staffers even believed that confidential information about their mental health was at risk. With Trump pushing to return to power on an agenda even more vicious than his first, a full accounting of the misuse of powerful stimulants and sedatives by his staff isn’t just a matter of historical interest. It’s a preview of a very possible future.

During Trump’s presidency, two sources say, senior staffers would repeatedly down Xanax with alcohol. Such a combination increases the risk of “serious, life-threatening side effects,” according to the National Library of Medicine. Nevertheless, senior officials would use Xanax and alcohol together to soothe themselves while enduring the sky-high levels of stress that come with working at the highest pressure environment job in America — with the added pleasure of serving the whims of the infamously volatile, intemperate Trump.




As one former senior administration official puts it: “You try working for him and not chasing pills with alcohol.”



THE WHITE HOUSE MEDICAL UNIT has been handing out prescription medications to staffers for decades — especially when they’re traveling abroad, and need to combat jet lag. “I think any White House staff knows that overseas trips are very grueling,” Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former White House press secretary, recalls. “For us, you’d be on a flight with a president who never sleeps, and then you hit the ground running in a foreign country, and you have to be alert and ready for the president and other foreign leaders.”

She describes a procedure broadly familiar to staffers across administrations: On overseas trips, physician to the president Dr. Ronny Jackson “would come around Air Force One asking Donald Trump’s senior staff if they needed anything. This included Provigil and [the sleep aid] Ambien, and he would hand them out, typically in the form of packets with two or three pills in them. When this happened on Air Force One, a nurse would be trailing him, writing down who got what.”

It’s back home where things got sloppier, the Defense Department investigation and our sources note. Pills were often handed out without a specific need or diagnosis. Black-and-white procedures that doctors and pharmacists routinely follow when prescribing controlled substances were ignored. Orders for pills were often written down incorrectly, or not at all. One former White House Medical Unit staffer told Pentagon investigators that the unit “work[ed] in the gray… helping anybody who needs help to get this mission done.” Another said, “Is it being done appropriately or legally all the time? No. But are they going to get to that end result that the bosses want? Yeah.”

So while prescription drugs have long been in the White House — John F. Kennedy reportedly took a cocktail of uppers and downers to fight back pain, and Richard Nixon allegedly took an anti-epileptic drug “when his mood wasn’t too good” — they have rarely been dispensed as widely as they were in the Trump years.





Then-President Donald Trump participates in a briefing at the White House on April 21, 2020. Drew Angerer/Getty Images
The anything-anytime-anywhere approach inspired a sense of entitlement among Trump staffers. Some senior administration officials would casually mention their Xanax intake, one source with direct knowledge of the matter recalls. The source describes a time when an aide to Melania Trump walked into the White House Medical Unit and said, “‘Could you prescribe me Xanax.’ She just came in and demanded it.” The source wasn’t a doctor or pharmacist, however, and wasn’t allowed to prescribe the anti-anxiety drug. The source politely turned the aide down. “She stormed out,” the source says.

This is not, to put it mildly, how these drugs are ordinarily handled. “We tightly track controlled substances like this because they’re addictive or can cause overdoses,” says Dr. Beata Lewis, a psychiatrist based in Brooklyn. “It sounds like with all of these substances, people could get whatever they wanted. That puts people at risk for addiction.”

She adds: “The significant thing is these rules apply to everyone … except for the White House. It’s a culture of entitlement and being above the rules to the point of putting people in danger.”

There wasn’t much the medical unit staffers could do, even if they wanted to hold the line. Several told Pentagon investigators “they feared they would receive negative work assignments or be “fired” if they spoke out.

ADDING TO THE CLIMATE OF FEAR was the sense that even private therapy sessions would not be kept private in the Trump White House. The medical unit provided psychological counseling on request. But White House staffers were instructed to be on their guard. One former senior administration official tells Rolling Stone that within the first two years of the Trump presidency, they were warned by a colleague against divulging anything during a private White House medical session that they “would not want to be used against” them. At the time, this source notes, this puzzled the official, who was then told that under Trump, the office had a reputation for being more porous with private information “than you might expect.”




The former administration official didn’t think much of it at the time. The source shrugged the warning off as mere gossip and moved on. However, according to other individuals with intimate knowledge of the matter, it was hardly an idle rumor. Immediately after counseling sessions, therapists were pressed for information about what they were told.

“They’d say, ‘We need you to see this person.’ They’d walk me over there. I’d see this person. Then as soon as I got out, they would ask, ‘Hey what happened?’” one of these sources tells us. To this source, this was a blatant violation of patient confidentiality. The source would try to be as vague as possible in their responses to the questions, but in the Trump White House, “it was all kind of open kimono,” they say.

Keith Bass, who led the White House Medical Unit from 2017 to 2019, confirms that these sorts of debriefs did, in fact, happen after counseling sessions. But he says they never went into details; they were merely to determine whether a “medical/behavioral health event” would prevent a “military/DoD staff” member “from performing their duties or impac[t] their ability to maintain a [top secret] clearance while assigned to the White House,” Bass says in an email. “Detailed clinical notes were not required from the psychologist; only a broad overview to determine fitness for duty status.”

Our source says that’s not entirely accurate. For starters, these debriefs happened after therapy sessions with civilian staffers as well. And while the questions may have been “seemingly innocent,” the source says they could be seen as the start of a “slippery slope,” which would then “drif[t] down into asking for information that was not appropriate.”

The White House Medical Unit’s often casual approach to giving out controlled substances didn’t exactly inspire confidence. “The sloppiness around handing out medications had me highly concerned about the protection of behavioral health information — medical information at large. There was no protection of sensitive patient information, period,” the source says.

Any attempts to add more rigor were entirely unwelcome, the source adds. “The more I held to professional standards” — the more the source objected to the pressure to divulge details about therapy sessions, and to keep patient information private — the worse it got. White House staffers “ostracized me,” the source says. “Nobody would talk to me. The culture was toxic as fuck.”




MODAFINIL WAS DISCOVERED in the 1970s by French scientists and was first handed out to pilots to help keep them awake and on task in the 1991 Gulf War. The U.S. military started to use modafinil in earnest around the 2003 invasion of Iraq. At the time, it was heralded as a massive improvement over previous stimulants: stronger and more effective than caffeine, less physically addictive than amphetamines. “These medications aren’t stimulants like the old military ‘go pills,’ there are few if any side effects when taken as prescribed. They simply stave off drowsiness until the medication wears off, then you naturally fall asleep,” one knowledgeable source writes.

But that “taken as prescribed” caveat is crucial. When handed out willy-nilly, outside a doctor’s supervision, modafinil can pose serious risks, notes Dr. Rachel Teodorini, a researcher at London South Bank University’s division of psychology who has examined the drug and its effects. “If people have cardiovascular problems, heart problems, or blood pressure issues, it could cause things like strokes or heart attacks,” she tells us. And while modafinil doesn’t appear to physically hook patients, “there’s an element of at least psychological dependence. Tolerance builds up, and you need more and more.”


Modafinil tablets. Alamy Stock Photo
As a recent study in the journal Military Medicine notes, “although modafinil was initially said to comprise no risk for abuse, there are now indications that modafinil works on the same neurobiological mechanisms as other addictive stimulants.”

And just like with other stimulants, the overuse of modafinil can lead to the perceived need for anti-anxiety medications like Xanax. “Effectively, you’re using one drug to get you up and another to get you down,” Teodorini said.

Some former Trump staffers tell Rolling Stone they didn’t get these drugs directly from the White House Medical Unit. One former Trump White House aide concedes they “borrowed” some modafinil from “a friend,” who said they’d gotten it from the unit. “I had a lot going on in my life and I wanted some,” they say.

In other administrations, modafinil was used “99 percent of the time” for jet lag, one source notes. The Trump White House was a free-for-all. Two other sources each independently compared the White House during those years to college campuses where students cramming for finals or pulling all-nighters would pass around Adderall and other drugs, prescriptions be damned. But it wasn’t just the administration’s junior staffers — the recent college grads — who partook. The sources add that midlevel and certain senior officials — including those who reported to then-President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump — came to rely on modafinil, as well. The sources and former senior Trump officials, who all requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, recall instances of staff casually slipping the medical unit-provided stimulant to one another, in efforts to stay focused and help navigate the exhausting chaos of the Trump presidency.




It was “ironic” that Trump’s White House was “one place the war on drugs wasn’t being fought,” one of the former officials sardonically notes, given Trump and many of his lieutenants’ zeal for waging the international war on drugs.

NEARLY EVERY SOURCE INTERVIEWED for this story traced the problems with the White House Medical Unit back to Jackson, who joined the team during the George W. Bush administration and became physician to President Barack Obama in 2013. Before then, he was known as an eccentric. Afterward, he became a menace, as several Defense Department investigations detail.

On a trip to Argentina in March 2016, one of those reports notes, Jackson’s “intoxicated behavior in the middle of the night, pounding on [a female subordinate’s] hotel room door, screaming, yelling, and overall loud behavior in his hotel room exhibited less than exemplary workplace conduct while on official travel to provide medical care for the President.” The Pentagon interviewed 60 of Jackson’s former subordinates; 56 “experienced, saw, or heard about [him] yelling, screaming, cursing, or belittling subordinates.” During a six-week stretch in 2018, a Defense Department hotline received 12 complaints” about Jackson.

Jackson’s office did not respond to a request for comment. After this story was published, he complained on X that Rolling Stone is “nothing but a liberal rag,” and demanded the names of our sources.

His nomination to become Secretary of Veterans Affairs that same year was derailed over accusations he handed out pills to White House staffers like a “candyman.” (In one case, a Senate report noted, medical staffers fell “into a panic” because he had given such “a large supply” of Percocet pain pills to a member of the White House Military Office.)


Then-President Donald Trump looks to White House physician Ronny Jackson during an event at the White House on Aug. 3, 2017. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Jackson briefly returned to the White House as Trump’s “chief medical adviser” in 2019 before running for Congress. But no matter what position he held, several sources tell us, his influence dominated medical care at the Trump White House, and Jackson’s “minions” and “loyalists” ran the White House Medical Unit in his stead. “Any practices existing at that time were all set up by Jackson, who’d been there for a dozen years. Though the med unit was led by an administrator, little happened without his say-so,” one of those sources say.




The source adds, “Unit leadership did slowly start making appropriate changes, but due to [the] complicated nature of missions, individual expectations within the organization, a self-imposed cone of silence and fear of being held liable for sins of the father, it took a long time to find the right way forward.”

OUR INTEREST IN THIS STORY was sparked, in part, by a handwritten ledger reprinted on page 14 of the January inspector general’s report: a tracking form for the controlled substances ordered by the White House Medical Unit. In addition to the thousands of pills of Ambien and Provigil listed are even more potent sedatives and pain pills: morphine, hydrocodone, diazepam and lorazepam (better known by their brand names, Valium and Ativan), fentanyl, and even ketamine.

Jackson, now a Republican congressman from Texas, told the Washington Post that his team prescribed narcotics “less than five times” across his tenure. And according to the paper’s sources, drugs like fentanyl were “kept on hand for extreme emergencies — such as a White House fence jumper impaling themselves on a spike.”

That’s a ridiculous example, a well-placed source tells us. “Someone just made up something. If there was a jumper, someone would call 911,” the source says. The jumper would then be transferred to a nearby civilian hospital.

But there was a grain of truth to the idea that the medical unit retained fentanyl and the like for extreme events. In the wake of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a desire to bring the advances in battlefield medicine to the White House. If the president or vice president were to get shot in a remote location, far from any hospital, the unit’s physicians wanted to be able to insert a breathing tube into the VIP almost instantaneously, a process known as “rapid sequence induction and intubation.” Doing that requires sedating the patient in a hurry with powerful drugs.

“The unit employed the world’s standards in pre-hospital trauma care, as directed by the DoD’s Joint Trauma System & Committee on tactical-combat casualty-care guidelines. That includes the use of ketamine, fentanyl, etc. for pain management,” a second knowledgeable source writes. “The whole mission is contingency planning for providing most/best possible care for the worst/craziest scenarios.”




Needless to say, they never encountered a scenario that nuts. And we didn’t uncover any evidence that ketamine or fentanyl were handed out to White House staff the way Xanax and Provigil were.





But as the handwritten ledger shows — and our sources confirm — the medical unit’s procedures had grown so sloppy, so lax, that it’s impossible to prove the negative, that these sedatives and dissociatives weren’t given to White House staff. “In our analysis of the White House Medical Unit’s controlled substance records, we found that medications, such as opioids and sleep medications, were not properly accounted for,” the inspector general’s report reads. “These records frequently contained errors in the medication counts, illegible text, or crossed-out text that was not appropriately annotated.”

That might sound like minor errors in paperwork. They’re not. They’re the kind of transgressions that turn patients into addicts, and doctors into ex-doctors. “If you’re sloppy even a little bit with controlled substances, you’ll lose your [medical] license,” one source notes. Without proper record keeping, there’s no way to say just how much of the Trump White House was on drugs. There’s no way to tell how they might use — and abuse — prescription medications if they come back to power. “Nothing is written down,” another source says of the unit’s drug distribution during the Trump years, “because we will always get to yes.”



https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...ump-white-house-drugs-speed-xanax-1234979503/

 

Well, its either a slow news day, or american hater is going for bunus bucks from whoever it is that pays him to copy n paste this tripe. Or, he forgot we already exposed the lies/vial omissions in the story.

Starting with,

• the head of this whitehouse drug cartel served for all 8 years of the Obama administration.
• The drug cartel, violating federal drug laws, failed to keep records as required, suspiciously only able to produce records from the Trump administration.
• That trump is a well known teetotaler and even the demented left hasn't been able to tie trump to any drug abuse.

Just another load of goose shit, retreaded for some reason, ignoring basic ethics and moral standards.

 

E. Jean Carroll lawyer scoffs at Trump's effort to dodge $83.3M ruling in new court filing

Kathleen Culliton
March 4, 2024 10:23PM ET



Writer E. Jean Carroll and former President Donald Trump. Photos by GWR/Star Max/GC Images and Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images




E. Jean Carroll's lawyer Monday slapped back after former President Donald Trump demanded a stay on the $83.3 million a federal court order him to pay the woman he was found liable for defaming, court records show.

Roberta Kaplan filed a letter to Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan challenging Trump's motion on a stay of execution in no uncertain terms.

"He (incorrectly) claims that we mischaracterized Second Circuit law," Roberta Kaplan writes.

The case in question involved a Long Island strip search case in Nassau County in which the defendant was allowed to stay the ruling because they proved they could come up with the cash, the attorney writes.

She explains the problem she found with Trump's interpretation.

"The requesting party must offer some 'alternative means,'" writes Kaplan, "the whole point of which is to make sure the appellee will be made whole in the event she succeeds on appeal."

Kaplan then chastises Trump — also found liable for more than $450 million in fraud — for providing no proof that he'll have the damages he was ordered to pay Carroll.

"In Nassau, those alternative means consisted of a dedicated and readily collectible governmental appropriation," Kaplan writes. "Here, in stark contrast, Trump offers no alternative means other than his own unsubstantiated say so that he will have $83.3 million available when Carroll prevails on appeal."



https://www.rawstory.com/trump-e-jean-carroll-2667428377/

 

Trump's ex-doctor demoted by Navy for inappropriate behavior in White House

Travis Gettys
March 7, 2024 10:27AM ET



FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee to be U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Navy Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, meets with Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) at his office on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts




Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX), the former White House physician, was demoted by the U.S. Navy following an inspector general's report that found he acted inappropriately while serving under then-president Donald Trump.

The Navy demoted the two-term congressman from a retired admiral to captain, which carries serious financial implications and a social stigma among military circles, after the Pentagon inspector general faulted him for creating a hostile work environment and drinking and taking drugs while on duty as the president's doctor, reported the Washington Post.

“The substantiated allegations in the DoDIG [Department of Defense Office of Inspector General] investigation of Rear Adm (lower half) Ronny Jackson are not in keeping with the standards the Navy requires of its leaders and, as such, the Secretary of the Navy took administrative action in July 2022,” said Lt. Cmdr. Joe Keiley, a Navy spokesperson.

Keiley declined to comment on Jackson's current rank or confirm his demotion, but the GOP congressman continues to refer to himself as a retired rear admiral, as do the former president and other Republicans.

ALSO READ: ‘Worst scenario’: Republican senator feeling used and abused by MAGA

“While it is possible that others will mistakenly refer to him as ‘Admiral’ in perpetuity, he himself should not make that mistake,” said Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at Center for a New American Security.

A Navy official confirmed the service branch took unspecified action against Jackson in response to the 2021 inspector general report, which found that he berated subordinates, “made sexual and denigrating statements” toward a woman who served under him, and took the sleep drug Ambien and drank alcohol with subordinates while on duty.

The annual pension payment for a retired one-star admiral, as Jackson was when he retired in December 2019, is more than $15,000 higher than what a retired captain would draw, according to Kuzminski, and that gap will likely widen over time with periodic rate increases.



https://www.rawstory.com/admiral-ronny-jackson/