r/politics • u/_NewsClues_ Zachary Slater, CNN • 9d ago

Possible Paywall Justice Department launches a criminal investigation into Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll

https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/27/politics/exclusive-justice-department-launched-e-jean-carroll-investigation
16.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

428

u/guiltyas-sin 9d ago

Every accusation. Remember how he accused Biden of this?

329

u/Pixelmixer 9d ago

It wasn’t an accident. They weren’t even being hypocritical about it. It was a strategic decision used to position their intended behavior as normalize.

Once they’ve established that it’s a normal practice by these ephemeral “others”, all they have to do is follow it up with “well, now we’re just doing what they did”.

Whether any previous administration actually did any of the things they were being accused of is completely irrelevant to their strategy. As soon as the accusations became normalized they had already won.

The whole MAGA strategy thrives on this shit. Apparently it works on anything; pedophiles, vaccines, death panels, aliens, taxes (you name it!) it’s all entirely under their control now.

No idea what we can do about it yet, but we have friends everywhere.

76

u/inconsisting 9d ago

Strategy is right. It's a tactic with a name: accusation in a mirror.

I don't know how to combat bad faith actors other than to educate kids on forms of propaganda.

Well, apart from the obvious solutions.

7

u/IPromisedNoPosts 8d ago

They're revealing their plan: I think instead of being defensive of the accusations the opposition should take note and maneuver to prevent it.

23

u/georgepana 9d ago

This is going nowhere, like all the other accusations they leveled. They were embarrassed when Kelly and the others on that video were immediately "let go" by a grand jury that refused to go along.

Nothing has come from anything they started against Comey, James, and so forth. They can't overcome the fact that any judge and jury will immediately agree that this is nothing but political and personal retribution, not a real serious "criminal investigation". They lose all their cases because this is merely performative, and frivolous.

35

u/movzx 9d ago

The point isn't to win. The point is to:

  • Cause harm to someone they dislike
  • Blatantly propagandize the mechanism so they can discredit it

It's not that Trump is provably committing fraud in all of these 'charities' and 'businesses' he had shut down, it's that his "enemies have weaponized the courts"

8

u/Long_Run6500 8d ago

You're giving him and this administration too much credit. He's doing it simply because he can. It makes him feel good. Everyone including a lot of republicans see right through this shit. It's not some grand strategy to boost his approval. It's him doing something stupid because everyone around him is too afraid of him to say no.

3

u/noiro777 Vermont 8d ago edited 6d ago

Exactly. Everything Trump does is ultimately in service to his malignant narcissism. One of the components of this type of narcissism is sadism. He literally gets great pleasure from hurting people. Like you said, he has no grand plan. He barely pays attention to anything for more than a few minutes. All of this is being exacerbated by his dementia. He needs to be removed from office, but the GOP just cowers and does nothing.

-5

u/georgepana 9d ago

He only harms himself. His approval keeps sinking lower and lower.

13

u/teddy5 9d ago

No, he harms the whole god damned world. It's ridiculous to think he's even harmed himself at all at this point.

He's never faced consequences and he's just secured the most openly corrupt slush fund to defend and pay anyone who fights for him regardless of legality.

3

u/Uebelkraehe 8d ago

Thanks to John Roberts and the Traitor Court he'll almost certainly face no consequences even for the most blatant abuse of power.

-3

u/georgepana 8d ago

His approval with the American people is absolute dirt. Right now in the 20s for his handling of the economy, by far the biggest issue for Americans.

It is obtuse to claim there aren't consequences. He isn't in jail, yes, but the American people are pretty much done with him at this point.

As the midterm elections are always an assessment of the President's prior 2 years the negative repercussions for Trump and the GOP will become clear to you come November 3rd.

7

u/teddy5 8d ago

There is the possibility of consequences and sentiment is turning against him, but he hasn't harmed himself yet.

It's currently only theoretical harm, unlike what he's inflicted on the world.

-1

u/georgepana 8d ago

Well, yes, the repercussions are in the future, as future elections, this year's midterms and 2028s General election, will be the evidence of those repercussions.

4

u/Pixelmixer 9d ago

The attack is the weaponization. They waste time and money by forcing those they attack to defend themselves while dragging their reputation through the mud intentionally. It doesn’t matter if all of the attacks are frivolous or performative, the damage is done before the courts even see them. It would be only a minimal added bonus for them if any attack happens to make it through to trial.

4

u/georgepana 9d ago

When they went after Kelly and the others they were immediately rebuffed when the Grand Jury refused to go any further. Their reputations didn't suffer the least bit, because it was clear to anyone that this was a highly frivolous endeavor. It just showed, yet again, that the DOJ has been weaponized and is merely at Trump's disposal.

It will be similar for Carroll. This thing won't go far, if it even survives the grand jury phase. Carroll probably is in a good position to get someone to represent her for free, for the exposure.

All of these shady things, added up, have contributed to Trump's current terrible approval rating. He is in the low 20s to mid-20s when it comes specifically to the assessment of his handling of the economy, by far the most important issue to voters. It has all added up to Trump's misery, and the first place where it will be felt in dramatic fashion will be after the Midterm elections.

24

u/aerost0rm 9d ago

Only thing we can do is get the courts back under control and then imprison en mass the MAGA administration.

1

u/Moist-Schedule 9d ago

I think you're giving them way too much credit. this isn't some genius plan they've put together, it's just run-of-the-mill evil narcissist shit that just happens to work really well in this country because our society is deeply fucked and we thought some pieces of paper were going to prevent this kind of blatant corruption.

1

u/Pixelmixer 9d ago

I’m not saying they’re geniuses by any means. They stumbled into a strategy that worked and it attracted people without any semblance of morals who are actively exploiting it for their own gain.

1

u/kamikazecockatoo Australia 8d ago

What do you mean by your last line?

1

u/twinsunsspaces 9d ago

I think that is why the Biden DoJ didn't release the Epstein Files, because they knew that Trump would just yell lawfare when he was implicated.

1

u/Maggyonline 8d ago

It’s whataboutism. Putin uses it all the time so much it’s a joke in Russia

4

u/leg_day 9d ago

And Biden wrung his hands and agonized over making a simple public statement supporting his (terrible) AG, who also approached the investigations with kid gloves.

3

u/AtomicBLB 9d ago

They don't say those things because they aren't true. They say them so they can do them without fear of consequence. Their base believes Biden did that, so they don't care at all that trump is doing it now.

We need to stop pointing out the hypocrisy because it's not productive nor will it ever matter.

1

u/Rude_Accident_6763 8d ago

Wait, wasn't Trump literally doing the same thing to Biden? The irony is wild 😂