In the ongoing saga that is the E. Jean Carroll case against Donald Trump, there’s been a clear winner and loser the entire time. Legally, anyway. Emotionally, Trump has the upper hand of course: He doesn’t have emotions, and she’s his sexual abuse victim.

But legally, she’s been one step ahead of him since the very beginning. From the moment she accused him — which was NOT during campaign season, as many right-wingers have alleged — it was almost too easy to believe her story.

After all, this is a man who, before he was ever elected in 2016, all of America heard on tape bragging about sexually assaulting women. It’s still amazing to me that he managed to get elected after the transcript of the tape from Access Hollywood came out. It was one thing to hear it, but to see the words with no laughing, no wink-wink-nudge-nudge between boys is truly jarring:

Trump: Yeah that’s her with the gold. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful… I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.

Billy Bush: Whatever you want.

Trump: Grab them by the p*ssy. You can do anything.

While some dismissed it as “locker room talk,” as soon as he says “I don’t even wait,” he’s describing sexual assault — even if it goes no further than the kiss. But then he describes something that nearly any court in America would define as actual rape. You can’t see his face at that point on the tape, but the tone of his voice is unmistakable: It’s the sound of a man smiling while he talks.

So how could we NOT believe E. Jean Carroll when she came forward and credibly described an encounter with Trump in which she said he did exactly what he described on that tape, only to her?

A jury found him liable for assaulting her. He was ordered to pay her $5 million. In fact, just today, another judge threw out his appeal in that case — he will have to pay her. Which is unfortunate for him and his legal team, because they were hinging their appeal of his defamation case on this appeal succeeding.

Oh, that’s right, he was found liable of defamation for continuing to insist she was lying, even after he’d been found liable in the first case. That cost him another $83 million.

Now he’s defaming her further, even if he thinks he’s not by using someone else’s post to do it.

Over on Truth Social, just a few days ago, one of his loyal fans posted a meme containing a picture of Carroll and Trump, asking whether a woman who “falsely accuses” a man of rape should face incarceration.

It may seem like just a meme. But it states a hypothetical, uses this specific case as the example, and tells the reader to “retruth” the image — like a retweet on X — if they “want justice” for Donald Trump for this specific transgression.

It is saying that E. Jean Carroll falsely accused Trump of rape. Donald “retruthed” it, saying the same thing. That’s the same defamation he’s already been found liable for to the tune of more than 80 million dollars.

But Donald Trump can’t stop lying. Ever.

And the worst part is, it’s not even just the lying. It’s the fact that this is a clear signal that he plans to keep defying court orders against him talking about the case. That sets the tone for his upcoming term in the Oval Office, if he’s not concerned about legal blowback for his actions just because he’s the president.

We all know that he actually thinks he CAN do anything he wants while he holds the office. He believes that the limited immunity ruling from the Supreme Court covers any and all crimes he commits while in office or out of office. It doesn’t, of course — immunity only applies to “acts relating to the official duties of the president.”

But our track record of holding him accountable isn’t that great so far. We’ve dropped charges against him for things we had ample proof of him doing, just because it would break “protocol” about charging, prosecuting, or sentencing a president while they’re in office.

From the looks of how Trump is still treating the E. Jean Carroll ruling, it’s past time for America’s legal and political system to step up their game and stop letting him get away with everything.