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A legal expert said Friday that the jury in Donald Trump's defamation trial wanted to deliver a very clear message when it hit him with a massive amount of damages.

The former president was ordered to pay $83.3 million after a civil jury sided with writer E. Jean Carroll as her lawyers described how the former president defamed her. Of that, $65 million was in punitive damages, which are meant to punish the defendant.

The substantial amount comes after Carroll had already been awarded damages of $5 million in an earlier defamation and sexual abuse trial last year.

In Friday's decision, former federal prosecutor Elie Honig believes the amount they came to — far greater than the $10 million her legal team initially sought — was intentionally high to send a strong message.

"This is a massive number, far in excess of anything I think anyone really expected —18 times the amount of the verdict in the first trial. ... [Her] lawyers explicitly asked the jury to send a message and that is what they have done," he said during an appearance on CNN's "The Lede" with Jake Tapper minutes after the verdict was reported.

Honig continued: $60 million dollars in punitive damages — that is a message to a person who essentially the jury says we don't think you can be deterred for anything less than this massive amount of money."

Trump has already vowed he will appeal.

"Absolutely ridiculous," he posted on Truth Social. "I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!"

His attorney Alina Habba also appeared before a scrum of reporters saying "there was no proof" and complained that her "experts were denied".

"We are seeing a violation of our justice system," she said.

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Honig also pointed out that, historically, Trump's success legally in the Empire State has been touch and go.

"The broad notion is that New York juries are not friendly to [former] President Trump, I think that's pretty clear," he said.

The sexual assault revelations came during Trump’s presidency when Carroll, now 80, claimed she was in a dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in 1996 when he attacked her.

She claims Trump since went on to publicly defame her, telling reporters “She’s not my type” and “Totally lying. I don’t know anything about her." “I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her. She is — it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that.”

The latest trial involved defamatory comments he made while president, and are separate from the comments he was found liable for in his first trial. The judge had already found him liable the second time, and the jury was solely considering damages.

Watch the video below or at this link.

Donald Trump on Friday reacted to the news that he was being ordered to pay more than $80 million in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

Trump, who testified in the trial but was limited in what he could say because it was solely about determining damages and not liability, said it is "absolutely ridiculous" that he was hit with such a high damages verdict. That amount is on top of the $5 million Trump was previously ordered to pay after the first Carroll trial last year.

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Trump posted his response on his own social media site, Truth Social.

"I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party," Trump wrote on Friday. "Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!"

A pastor says he may have misunderstood his divine instruction after being accused of a scheme to defraud his parishioners out of $3.2 million, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Eligio Regalado, who goes by Eli, and his wife, Kaitlyn Regalado, are being charged by the Colorado Securities Commissioner.

According to the legal filing, the Regalados invented their own Christian cryptocurrency which they sold through the Kingdom Wealth Exchange, an online body they also created. The cryptocurrency went under the name INDXcoin.

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"The action, filed in Denver District Court, seeks preliminary and injunctive relief, damages for investors and for a constructive trust to be placed on the Defendants’ property," described the release from Commissioner Tung Chan.

From June 2022 to April 2023, INDXcoin scored nearly $3.2 million thanks to investments by more than 300 people in the "Christian community," the legal filing states. Regalado, who is based in Denver, said that God directly told him investors would be wealthy if they threw all of their money into INDXcoin.

"The Lord said: I want you to build this,” Regalado told individuals, according to the filing. “We took God at his word and sold a cryptocurrency with no clear exit.”

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Now he has another story.

“Either I misheard God, and every one of you who prayed and came in — you as well. Or two, God is still not done with this project,” Regalado said, implying that it would still deliver.

The couple had no experience in cryptocurrency, the Washington Post reported. A third-party audit called the effort "unsafe, unsecured and riddled with serious technical problems." The legal filing called it practically worthless.

“We allege that Mr. Regalado took advantage of the trust and faith of his own Christian community and that he peddled outlandish promises of wealth to them when he sold them essentially worthless cryptocurrencies,” said Commissioner Chan. “New coins and new exchanges are easy to create with open source code. We want to remind consumers to be very skeptical.”

Republican voters have already shown they overwhelmingly prefer to keep Donald Trump in control of their party.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dropped out Sunday after falling short in Iowa, and Nikki Haley could be out of the race soon unless she surprises in New Hampshire, showing that GOP voters don't want Trump "lite" when the real deal is running for his third nomination, reported Wall Street Journal columnist Molly Ball.

"What the GOP’s most loyal voters want, it seems, is pure, uncut Trumpism — with all the baggage and ideological divergence from traditional conservatism that entails," Ball wrote.

"Between DeSantis’s withdrawal and Haley’s having little apparent path forward barring a major upset, the race could well be effectively over by Wednesday, the party having passed up yet another opportunity to turn the page on a polarizing, multiply-indicted fabulist who lost the last election and has never won the popular vote."

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Both Haley and DeSantis tried to appeal to voters who liked Trump but would prefer an alternative, but the Iowa results and polls in New Hampshire and elsewhere make clear Republicans have no interest in turning the page on the former president, Ball wrote.

“The Republican Party we knew isn’t coming back,” the anti-Trump Republican Sarah Longwell posted on X. “GOP voters don’t want it back. They don’t want limited government, free markets, and American leadership in the world. They want isolationism, an authoritarian crackpot president, and a big government that enforces their worldview.”

The party's Reaganites thought they might wait for the fever to break and reclaim the party, but anti-Trump Republicans think that will never happen, she wrote.

“I’m never surprised — that went out the window six or seven years ago — but I can’t lie, I’m still profoundly disappointed,” said former GOP congressman Joe Walsh, who launched a long-shot challenge against Trump in 2020. “The fact that Trump incited and led an insurrection and they didn’t throw him into Siberia proved there’s nothing he can do to lose the base.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) scolded the U.S. Supreme Court after justices ruled that President Joe Biden's administration could remove razor wire placed at the border by Texas officials.

During an interview on Tuesday, Real America's Voice correspondent Ben Bergquam asked Greene about the recent Supreme Court ruling.

"And you, I noticed you mentioned the disastrous unconstitutional ruling by the Supreme Court yesterday, basically allowing the federal government to allow an invasion on our southern border," Bergquam stated. "How concerned are you with that and then the implications that that could have with their decisions around President Trump on the ballots going forward, especially with this lawfare weaponization of the justice system against President Trump?"

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"Right. This is how communism starts," Greene replied. "I was just talking to a New Hampshire voter right here, an independent, and he was saying that statism is a concern, that big government is a concern. That's what the Biden administration absolutely has brought is big, powerful government, which is communism."

"I'm extremely concerned about that Supreme Court ruling," she continued. "We literally saw a ruling that's going to put the federal government at war with the state of Texas. What's going to be happening with the Border Patrol? What is going to be happening with Texas law enforcement? Are we actually going to see them fighting with one another?"

Greene called the ruling "the most radical, devastating thing that we have seen happen in a Supreme Court ruling, and I think Texas needs to stand their ground and we should join Texas in their fight against the federal government to defend their state, defend their border, defend their people."

"And I'm calling for that right now," she added.

Watch the video below from Real America's Voice.

Alina Habba, an attorney for Donald Trump, convinced a federal judge to postpone her client's defamation trial on Monday.

Moments after Monday's hearing started, Habba asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to adjourn because her parents had been exposed to COVID-19, according to reports.

At the same time, a juror who was on their way to the trial began to feel sick, according to reports.

"Trump won't be taking the stand today [because] everyone's going home," reporter Molly Crane-Newman wrote. "Juror No. 3 was 'on the way to the city but feeling hot and nauseous' this morning."

ALSO READ: Alina Habba is persona non grata at her Pennsylvania law school

"Alina Habba, who is beside Trump and not wearing a mask, tells the court she's had a fever. Kaplan grants a 1-day adjournment," she added.

Trump is accused of defaming writer E. Jean Carroll when he denied raping her. His testimony was expected this week.

Before adjourning, Kaplan denied another request for a mistrial from Trump's attorneys.