Given the multitude of serious criminal charges facing former President Donald Trump, one might think he’d be of the mind to let lesser issues (which I’ll revisit, later) go. If so, that one would be sorely mistaken. If Trump’s shown us anything over the last eight years, it’s that he’s incapable of letting anything go.

This brings us to journalist, author, and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

A federal judge on Monday dismissed Trump’s claim that Carroll defamed him in May after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing the writer. During an appearance on CNN — Where else? — Carroll claimed Trump had raped her, but he was “only” held liable for sexual abuse, due to New York’s definition of rape.

Nonetheless, Trump claimed Carroll’s rape accusation on CNN constituted defamation, and he filed a counterclaim to the writer’s other lawsuit against him — which has not yet gone to trial.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed Trump’s argument, ruling that Carroll’s statement on CNN was substantially true. Kaplan concluded that there “would have been no different effect on the mind of an average listener.”

The difference between Ms. Carroll’s allegedly defamatory statements — that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as defined in the New York Penal Law — and the ‘truth’ — that Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll — is minimal. Both are felonious sex crimes.

As we reported on May 9, 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for battery and defamation of Carroll, who claimed Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Trump was ordered to pay more than $5 million in damages. The following morning, Caroll appeared on CNN, as I noted earlier.

Kaplan also rejected Trump’s defense that he has “absolute presidential immunity” in the case — and others — which is one of Trump’s post-presidency go-tos as his legal problems mount.

Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, who’s not related to Judge Kaplan, said in a statement she’s pleased with the judge’s decision.

That means that the January 15th jury trial will be limited to a narrow set of issues and shouldn’t take very long to complete. E. Jean Carroll looks forward to obtaining additional compensatory and punitive damages based on the original defamatory statements Donald Trump made in 2019.

If you’re confused by Trump’s multiple legal issues, such as which indictment goes with which federal charges, and other such legal stuff, you’re not alone. It occurs to me that we need an editable owner’s manual — just to keep things straight and up to date.

I alluded to the Caroll case as a “lesser issue” in the first paragraph for good reason.

As I write, Trump has been charged in three criminal cases and may soon face a fourth. He faces 34 felony counts in New York in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. In Florida, he faces 40 felony counts related to the retention of classified documents and impeding the federal government’s efforts to retrieve them. In Washington, D.C., the former president faces four felony counts, charging that he attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and in Georgia, a local prosecutor likely to charge Trump is investigating 2020 election interference in the Peach Tree State.

Regardless of whether one or all of the above cases are “witch hunts,” as Trump calls them, those are serious charges which potentially have even more serious consequences if he’s found guilty of even some of the charges. I’m not Donald Trump, but personally, I’d want to keep the E. Jean Carroll case out of the news cycles, given that the so-called “mainstream” media obsesses over every negative story it can find — or concoct about the former president.

Meanwhile, Joe “The Big Guy” Biden sits in the White House and gloats, as the wheels of justice never quite make it to his doorstep.