We don t know what the information is. there s no reason to compel her attendance, wait until trial. she can be a witness for the defense at trial. we ll see what happens. so many people watching the case. it s a horrible case. i ve been in touch with the father of kayle gonzalez numerous times. it s just difficult. that does it for us. the lead starts after a quick break. stay with cnn. because your lives are forever entwined. love e entwined. exclusively at kay.
Told two women allegedly contemporaneously what happened. that s important because all the time that went by you re going to have to corroborate her statements, showing that somehow it is the precise story that was told all those years ago and now. so what is at stake for trump because we ve heard her allegations, right? she s written a book. we ve heard them. what else is at stake for trump here? well, first of all we re about a block away from where he was arraigned two weeks ago in a case not like this one but in a case very consequential as well. so the idea here what s at stake is just a culmination of other cases. however, this is a civil prosecution. he need not even appear. that might surprise some people. you don t have to actually show up, but he has shown up for a deposition. and those statements he said then could ultimately come in. and if you re e. jean carroll s attorneys knowing, number one, perhaps the unpredictability of a current in-person testimony and a witness, you want to rely
Repeating part of that message of the cause of 2020 which is that we re fighting for the nation s soul against, well, trump and maga republican extremists. he s going to the fundamentals that spurred him into office. it was a lot easier for him to make that argument when he was actually definitely running against donald trump. if the election were taken today, the primary election it looks like if the polls were right, that would happen. but we re very early in the republican nominating process. so i did think that what you just mentioned, those are very interesting points about his video. the other was he has spent the last, you know, several years, his presidency up until now trying to make the case for government working for you, for the american people, and that is kind of a cornerstone of the democratic party. but at least the beginning of
What are the consequences? right, so this all dates back to that propublica story, the mega-gop donor harlan crow, i gave these lavish gifts, this travel to justice clarence thomas. clarence thomas didn t disclose it, and at the time you and i talked about it he issued a state, right? and in the statement he basically said, look here it is early in my tenure at the court i sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and he basically made the point that he was advised this sort of personal hospitality from a close, personal friend who did not have business before the court was not reportable. that s notable. that s the key point that did not have business before the court, because now we learned in fact a company with close links to crow did have business before the court. what was the case? so it wasn t a big case. it was a firm that was trying to sue this company. it want today go to the supreme court. it wanted the supreme court to take up the appeal.
Skepticism and beyond skepticism about him running again. more like, well, eventually he s going to come around to the idea really hahe s too old for this, that kind of thing. that changed of course dramatically you might say because the party seems to be behind him now. not voters, by the way, because that s not clear but party leaders, voters who want to challenge him otherwise. you had ro khanna on earlier. he was a big supporter during the democratic process, and people who you might think quietly consider explore challenging him never got there at all, didn t even take those steps because he is an incumbent president and because they realize that it tends to divide the party. it has happened before. ted kennedy against jimmy carter. there have been other instances, but in this case because they
Let us take a look. you mentioned the germ bomb. so this is from cnn s medical source, what they say is that the danger lies in the outbreak of any armed confrontation in the laboratory because that will turn the laboratory into a germ bomb. an urgent and rapid international intervention is required to restore electricity and secure the laboratory from any armed confrontation because we are facing a real biological danger. now, again, we don t know really how much danger this present. that remains to be seen because there are so many ifs here. boris? elizabeth cohen, thank you so much for that eye opening report. jim? coming up, new updates on that close friend of supreme court justice clarence thomas, the one who paid for lavish trips for the justice and his wife. turns out he did have business before the supreme court at the time, what we re learning about that case. and flood waters have just
But again this is civil. he hasn t faced a criminal penalty. we re talking about money. money very important to trump, though. we ll see. all right, laura, thank you so much. jim? more about money. we have new developments in a story we first brought you earlier this month involving supreme court justice clarence thomas and a gop megadonor who paid for lavish trips and stays for justice thomas and his wife. the justice never disclosed those gifts and today we learned a company tied to the same donor did in fact have a case before the supreme court. justice thomas crucially did not recuse himself from that case before the court. cnn s supreme court justice reporter supreme court reporter arian joins me now. this is key, right, because the revelations were enough getting all these gifts and we re talking about a whole lot of money in terms of value. but now there was a case before the court and he didn t recuse himself.
Happened. he has said that carroll is, quote, not my type. we have cnn legal analyst laura coates joining us now. she s a former federal prosecutor. this is a really interesting case because so much time has passed. how tough is it to win a case like this after so much time? well, remember this is a case that was kind of revived with the new york legislation that said cases that are way past the limitations period can still now bring some sort of suit. this is based on battery and defamation. the defamation cases notoriously are difficult because you have to prove that there was some reason that you know the person was lying or they had some knowledge of the truth and acted against it. if you re actually the person who s alleged to have engaged in this behavior, she alleges rape, then defamation is a little bit easier to prove if you can show maybe you told someone close in time. one reason so interesting, briana, the people who will testify in this trial who by the way might not be trump is she