Sunday, May 01, 2016

Trump, Epstein, rape: A strange lawsuit

Here's a weird story that few (except for the Breitbart crowd) are discussing. A woman named Katie Johnson, allegedly of Tentynine Palms, California, is suing Donald Trump. She claims that he and Jeffrey Epstein raped her when she was 13.

There's a big problem with this claim: Proving that Katie Johnson exists. In the following, "Garten" refers to Trump's lawyer, Alan Garten.
Garten said that after checking, the person listed in the lawsuit is not the same person who filed it. But that's not the only irregularity.

“The plaintiff’s address is a false address," he said. "The plaintiff’s phone number is a false number. It’s outrageous.”

Moreover, Garten said, there's no evidence the person in the lawsuit even exists. Other reports indicate the alleged victim, a woman reportedly identified as Katie Johnson, provided an address in Twentynine Palms, California, that turns out to be an empty, foreclosed property. Garten said that while the address exists, "there is no indication or record that that person" named in the lawsuit "ever resided there." So, he added, "we believe it is a false address."

Worse yet, the phone number listed on the lawsuit rings to voicemail and public records indicate it belongs to another person. Garten said there is "no record" the number listed is connected to the person who made the allegations.
According to Garten, the lawsuit, which seeks $100 million in damages, appears to have been filed by someone with some legal expertise. The paperwork, he said, "was written on legal paper with margins and line numbers. It’s properly captioned. It has no typos. It has footers. It cites statutes."

"This has all the hallmarks of being drafted by someone with some level of legal background," he added, "This was filed to not leave fingerprints."
If this suit is pure deception, what would be the purpose? Such a hoax would only create sympathy for Trump -- and it would also harm the credibility of anyone else who might come forward with an accusation involving Epstein and Trump.

It is of interest that this accusation has received big play almost entirely on Breitbart and other highly-conservative venues, not on any liberal sites -- with the arguable exception of the anarchist site Antimedia.

Roger Stone, naturally, is doing his best to draw attention to this matter. You just knew that he would show up, didn't you?

Antimedia has helpfully published the entire filing. The details are salacious and, frankly, not very convincing. According to this account, Trump supposedly demanded a blowjob from Johnson and another minor, then berated both for doing a poor job.
During the course of this savage sexual attack, Plaintiff Johnson loudly pleaded with Defendant Trump to "please wear a condom". Defendant Trump responded by violently striking Plaintiff Johnson in the face with his open hand and screaming that "he would do whatever he wanted" as he refused to wear protection. After achieving sexual orgasm, the Defendant, Donald J. Trump put his suit back on and when the Plaintiff, Katie Johnson, in tears asked Defendant Trump what would happen if had impregnated her, Defendant Trump grabbed his wallet and threw out some money at her and screamed that she should use the money "to get a fucking abortion."
Does this seem real to you? Or does it seem like a story one might write about Cartoon Donald Trump, as seen on Stephen Colbert's show?

This story lacks the kind of detail one would expect -- details of place and people. I found nothing here that one could not gather from reading stories about the Epstein case. There are no non-essential names in this story. There is no explanation as to how Katie got to New York, who brought her to and from the airport, where her parents were, or why she was chosen.

The suit also promises that "material witness Tiffany Doe" -- an Epstein employee -- will provide testimony in this civil case.

Katie Johnson -- if she really does exist -- would be 34-36 years old. So far, I've found several Katie Johnsons within that age range in California, none of them living in the desert community of Twentynine Palms. I haven't checked the Kathryn, Katherine, Catherine or Kathleen Johnsons: There must be quite a few. Unfortunately, we're dealing with a very common name.

The suit is "in pro per," yet the format seems quite proper. In fact, this legal document is so well written, it's worthy of Alan Dershowitz himself. (I'm not saying that he wrote it; I'm saying that the quality is quite good.)

I don't know if this rape allegation is real. Right now, I suspect that someone is trying to ROGER the media...

Added note: In previous posts, I've mentioned Margaret Thatcher's great friend, Lord Alistair McAlpine, a Machiavelli scholar. McAlpine once offered some interesting advice for companies facing a potential scandal...
First, create a situation where you are wrongly accused. Then, at a convenient moment, arrange for the false accusation to be shown to be false beyond all doubt. Those who have made accusations against both the company and its management become discredited. Further accusations will then be treated with great suspicion.

7 comments:

CBarr said...

This is so similar to the GW Bush, Texas Air National Guard documents scandal that took down Dan Rather and inoculated GW. Weren't Roger Stone and his wife supposed to have been the players behind that scam?

Stephen Morgan said...

Bill Clinton was supposed to be a rapist. Someone sued Bush 2 for rape, before dying. The only surprise is that no-one has so far sued Obama for rape.

Alessandro Machi said...

There may be half a million homeowners who unnecessarily lost their homes to parallel foreclosures who might consider themselves raped by the present administration.

Anonymous said...

Loss of property is not rape. Seriously.



-Purenoize

Anonymous said...

This sounds almost exactly like the recent case of state representatives Todd Courser and Cindy Gamrat here in Michigan. Both Tea Party legislators were married and very holier-than-thou when they began their extra-marital affair. Because they weren't very discreet, word started going around, and Courser decided the best way to handle the situation was to send out a phony anonymous e-mail to Republican party movers and shakers claiming that he (Courser) had been caught having sex with a man outside a gay nightclub. All hell broke loose after that, the two became a national joke, and Gamrat was thrown out of the legislature (Courser resigned a few hours earlier). Both ran again in the special elections that were needed to replace them (although the people in their districts went unrepresented for six months), and fortunately, both were unsuccessful in their bids. If this is a ruse meant to inoculate Mr. Trump against another scandal, he might want to take a look at this recent (last year) adventure in nitwittery.
--teele

OldCoastie said...

So, what does the Donald need inoculation from?

Unknown said...

This case was flimsy and dismised by the judge. The Guardian did a write up on the Jerry Springer characters behind the filing.