A growing case for ‘karmic overload’

You’re not alone if you have a creeping sense of deja vu. A president under investigation by a special prosecutor gets caught up in litigation filed by a previous fling. The president lies publicly and then under oath in the course of a civil suit. The perjury is easily proved, and the House impeaches. That was the Paula Jones case, but it could well be the scenario that is about to play out today.

Stormy Daniels already has a defamation claim against President Trump based in part on his accusation that her story that she was threatened in a parking lot was false. (Trump says the claim of an affair was “false and extortionist’’.) Now she has a splendid case.

No wonder Michael Avenatti, Daniels’ lawyer, is dancing a jig. He has long said he has evidence of the affair in addition to his client’s compelling story. Accusing someone of a crime is defamation per se, meaning no damages need to be proved. Avenatti will be entitled to depose Trump under oath to ask some nettlesome questions.

There is delicious karma in this happening to Trump, who bludgeoned Hillary Clinton during the campaign for allegedly helping her husband to falsely smear women who accused the philandering president of sexual conduct. We reach karmic overload when we note that Trump has spent a lifetime threatening to and actually filing lawsuits alleging defamation.