Legal analyst: “Ominous” Carroll ruling may foreshadow Trump “incarceration” in hush-money case

Donald Trump’s E. Jean Carroll defamation trial could provide a glimpse into what the former president’s New York criminal case could look like, CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen argued. That case, brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, charges Trump with 34 counts of document falsification related to hush-money payments the then-2016-presidential candidate made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

At the time, Trump was attempting to avoid another “damaging scandal” following the attention around his “Access Hollywood” tape, in which he was recorded bragging about how he could sexually assault women, Eisen recounted in a clip flagged by Raw Story. 

“So, it reminds me — when I look at the E. Jean Carroll case, I say, ‘Hey, that’s a civil case, tough judge, same thing with the Bragg election interference,'” the Brookings Institution senior fellow told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Sunday. “New York jury, same — And we saw they didn’t like Donald Trump. Same thing with the election interference. Powerful evidence. Donald Trump’s own signature on many of the documents. I think it’s ominous for him.”

Eisen noted that the category of “election interference cases that have been charged as document falsification” do “lead to incarceration,” adding that the “potential is there” for the former president should he be convicted in Bragg’s case against him. Eisen went on to laud the New York criminal case, recalling how it was discounted.

People “said, ‘Oh, it will be removed to federal court and be tied up forever.’ Guess what? The federal court rejected it. They said, ‘Oh, you can’t charge this as a state prosecution. Election interference has to be federal.’ Guess what? The courts threw that out,” Eisen said, adding, “That case is on a rocket docket for March, and it’s a serious one.”