Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Janet Yellen is warning CEOs about the dangers of defaulting on the debt ceiling, the Victoria's Secret fashion show is coming back, and E. Jean Carroll's victory against Donald Trump shows the staying power of #MeToo. Happy Wednesday!
- Justice for E. Jean. In a piece for New York magazine earlier this week, journalist Rebecca Traister pushed back against the narrative that the #MeToo movement is over or dead. Traister wrote about the potential outcome of writer E. Jean Carroll's battery and defamation lawsuits against former President Donald Trump—Carroll says Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s—and argued that if Carroll lost, the result would not mark a failure of a political movement. "Fights for progress unwind over lifetimes, not seasons," she wrote. "Progress is marked by regressions and switchbacks, crushing defeats and galvanizing reactions to those defeats."
But instead of confronting defeat, Carroll and her allies notched a seismic victory yesterday that bolstered the argument that the #MeToo movement lives on. A jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll (it did not find him liable for rape) and for defamation; he had called Carroll's claim a "hoax" and implied she was too old and unattractive for him to assault. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages. (Trump called the verdict a "disgrace" and vowed to appeal.)
Of all the legal claims pending against Trump—from the Stormy Daniels hush money case to Trump Organization fraud allegations—this one stands out: A former president found liable for sexual battery. Interestingly, the big verdict was possible because of a small piece of legislation. Carroll was able to bring her claim under New York's Adult Survivors Act, which allows survivors to pursue dated claims that had otherwise expired under statutes of limitations. The law is one of many, relatively minor #MeToo-inspired changes whose effects—as Traister suggests—take time to unwind. Sometimes, like yesterday, they seem to unspool all at once.
By the way, two other pieces of news yesterday also show #MeToo's staying power: Tory Lanez was denied a new trial after his conviction in the shooting of Megan Thee Stallion, and a judge tossed out Marilyn Manson's defamation claim against Evan Rachel Wood, who had accused him of abuse.
"Being able to get my day in court finally is everything to me, so I’m happy,” Carroll said during the trial when asked if she regretted bringing forward the allegation. “I’m in court. This is my moment."
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe
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