Of course we all knew this, but to watch the destruction of the rule of law is frightening nonetheless

NY Democrats passed the “Adult Survivors Act” specifically so that Jean Carroll could sue Trump

E. Jean Carroll, the woman who accused former President Donald Trump of rape, assault and defamation, said Wednesday she helped New York Democrats change a state law so she could sue.

State Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act into law in 2022. The legislation allowed a “one-year lookback window for survivors of sexual assault” to sue their alleged abuser “regardless of when the abuse occurred.”

Trump was found liable Tuesday for defamation and battery but not rape in the case, with Carroll to be awarded a total of $5 million in damages.

“The fact that New York passed this law, the Adult Survivors Act,” CNN’s Poppy Harlow said. “They passed it just a few years ago. Were it not for that law, you never would have been able to bring this case.”

“Exactly. This would never – I would never have this window, this year of having the ability to bring a lawsuit for rape. Robbie can explain it better,” Carroll responded.

“E. Jean actually helped to get that law passed,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said. “It passed last year. We filed – it was Thanksgiving Day, the first day you could sue. We filed it just after midnight on Thanksgiving. And there are a lot of other women throughout the state and, hopefully, throughout this country, that they will get other laws like this passed in other states. And New York women should use this law while it’s still around, which is until next Thanksgiving.”

It was drafted for her, at her urging, and with her assistance, and for the sole reason of “getting” Trump. The rest of the “reasoning” is just window dressing bulllshit.

We fought a revolution to throw off the chains of monarchy, and one of the revolutionaries’ chief grievances was the King’s use of bills of attainder, or ex post facto laws to retroactively punish his subjects. The founders made certain that this was addressed in the new constitution:

Article I, Section 10, Clause 1:

No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

From the Library of Congress, Constitutional Analysis:

An ex post facto law is a law that imposes criminal liability or increases criminal punishment retroactively.1 Two separate clauses of the Constitution, Article I, Sections 9 and 10, ban enactment of ex post facto laws by the Federal Government and the states, respectively.2 The Supreme Court has cited cases interpreting the federal Ex Post Facto Clause in challenges under the state clause, and vice versa, treating the two clauses as having the same scope.3 The Court’s decisions interpreting both clauses are therefore discussed collectively in greater detail in the Article I, Section 9 essays on the federal Ex Post Facto Clause.4 In particular, those essays on federal and state ex post facto laws discuss Supreme Court jurisprudence addressing imposing or increasing punishments, procedural changes, employment qualifications, retroactive taxes, inapplicability to judicial decisions, and deportation and related issues.

The Supreme Court has interpreted the Ex Post Facto Clauses to limit only legislation that is criminal or penal in nature,5 though the Court has also made clear that the ex post facto effect of a law cannot be evaded by giving a civil form to that which is essentially criminal.6 In addition, the Court has uniformly applied the prohibition on ex post facto legislation only to laws that operate retroactively.7 In the 1798 case Calder v. Bull, the Court enumerated four ways in which a legislature may violate the Ex Post Facto Clauses’ prohibition on imposing retroactive criminal liability: (1) making criminal an action taken before enactment of the law that was lawful when it was done; (2) increasing the severity of an offense after it was committed; (3) increasing the punishment for a crime after it was committed; and (4) altering the rules of evidence after an offense was committed so that it is easier to convict an offender.8 The Ex Post Facto Clauses are related to other constitutional provisions that limit retroactive government action, including the federal and state Bill of Attainder Clauses, the Contract Clause, and the Due Process Clauses.9

They’re destroying the bedrock of our country.