This week the Supreme Court refused to hear Donald Trump's appeal, so the verdict stands. Two juries found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll, awarding her $5 million and then $83 million. A federal appeals court called the cruelty of his conduct remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented.
Here is what should alarm everyone. After Trump called Carroll a liar in public, over and over, she received hundreds of death threats. She put an electronic fence around her home and keeps bullets by her bed. He never told anyone to threaten her. His followers did it on their own, the same way they have gone after election workers and judges. That is what happens when the most powerful person in the country lies about a private citizen from the biggest platform on earth.
A president is not above the law, and no one should have to live behind a fence because he decided to lie about her. Please say so plainly and in public, and support protections for the private citizens and public servants who are targeted with threats after an official attacks them, the way the Election Worker Protection Act shields the people who run our elections.
