According to his representatives, former Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein is still digesting the overturning of his rape conviction by a New York court, but they did come out to say he was “cautiously excited”. Cautiously excited? I’m not sure these are the words I’d alight on to paint a word-picture of a rapist. You might as well say “tentatively aroused”. Then again, as we’re about to discuss, quite a lot of guys don’t particularly have to worry about what they say or do, or how they say or do it. It’s only natural that Harvey should very much want to be one of them again.
Speaking of word-pictures, though, how’s this for a vignette of our times? When they heard the news that Weinstein’s conviction had been overturned on Thursday, a whole host of reporters happened to be looking at the exact spot in the exact New York courtroom that he’d sat in when that original judgment had been handed down. This was because they were waiting for Donald Trump to sit in it for Thursday’s proceedings in his hush money trial. Mr Trump, you might recall, is in such a lot of trouble that he is the presumptive Republican nominee and current bookies’ favourite to win the US presidency again, though admittedly he lags behind Weinstein on the sexual assault and misconduct front, given that only 26 women have accused him of it. Ultimately, though, I guess the question is: if #MeToo “went too far”, what would “going just far enough” have looked like?
In seeking to answer that question, I’m somehow picturing the Best Picture climax of this year’s Oscars, with lifetime dictator Donald J Trump opening the envelope and calling it for Oppenheimer, before cackling: “I’m kidding with you, Nolan – the award goes to The Passion of the Harvey. Come on up here, all the guys from the Weinstein Company. And, Louis, you did a beautiful job with the role. You can add this one to your latest Grammy.”
Or hang on – maybe #MeToo going just far enough would just look like a supreme court justice who is credibly accused of sexual assault deliberating with his colleagues/fellow placemen on whether the president can commit crimes absolutely without consequences, and then them deciding that it’s honestly too hard to decide on for now, thus delaying the guy’s trial for trying to overturn the results of a democratic election. Because that one really happened, also on Thursday.
Not to flit too giddily between courtrooms, but we should note that despite Thursday’s news, Weinstein’s rape conviction in a Californian court still stands. As for what went wrong with his New York trial, it includes the legal error of the trial judge’s decision to allow testimony from four women who were not directly part of the case in hand. Long story short: unfortunately, simply too many women told the court that Weinstein had sexually assaulted them, which has now rendered his sexual assault trial null and void. The whole thing will have to be run anew, forcing an approved selection of those women to have to testify all over again. And yes – we might all have a number of strong views about those who benefit from the vagaries of the US legal system, but quite often you can’t print those views over this side of the Atlantic because of the vagaries of the UK legal system. Maybe we all get the legal systems we deserve. Except lawyers. You can’t help feeling those guys are the one set of people reaping unjust deserts from the legal system.
Anyhow, back to even more of Thursday’s court news coming out of New York, where another judge was also ruling against Trump’s appeal of the $83m defamation verdict in the case brought against him by the writer E Jean Carroll, who alleged he raped her in a department store changing room. Given Trump was in the aforementioned courtroom across town, it’s quite something to be able to say that the day nevertheless still turned out to be a net good one for him, what with the supreme court’s decision not to yet make a decision on whether he can stand trial on charges of conspiring to overthrow the election. Certainly it was news about which he could be cautiously excited.
But perhaps not about which he could be completely surprised, given his supreme efforts to bend the court to his will. Only the day before, the court had been hearing the state of Idaho argue for a ban on abortion even in cases where it is required for health-saving care. Trump’s campaign trail rallies see him frequently and repeatedly boast of being the puppet master of the judgment that overthrew Roe v Wade, the 1973 supreme court judgment that protected federal abortion rights. And he’s arguably right about that, what with having appointed three justices to the court and upset a balance the rest of the world is supposed to regard as fabled. Obviously, Trump’s pride in the achievement means so much more coming from a man who I’d love to joke has probably paid for more abortions than there are compromised supreme court justices, even if legal discussions over retaining that statement in this column are likely to run to more time than it took to write the column.
On balance, you couldn’t accuse Thursday of being a great day for Lady Justice – or indeed for lady justice. As it turns out, all the so-called reckonings of the past few years can be unreckoned with far more easily than they were won. The only thing that’s gone “too far” is the pretence that anything went far enough.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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