Fireworks as Trump faces rape accuser
Trump said he will attend the federal trial
Donald Trump is capping off his Iowa victory with a return to the courtroom.
Trump, whose 2024 presidential campaign will collide with a crowded schedule of criminal cases and lawsuits, has another trial beginning on Tuesday. At issue: how much he may have to pay advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her almost 30 years ago, for defaming her while he was president.
With the New Hampshire primary looming, Trump attacked the trial and his accuser.
“It is a giant Election Interference Scam, pushed and financed by political operatives. I had no idea who this woman was,” Trump wrote Tuesday morning in a post on Truth Social. “PURE FICTION!”
Trump, 77, and Carroll, 80, were both in court for the trial’s first day. Protesters stood outside the courthouse Tuesday morning holding signs that said “We believe E. Jean Carroll” and “Justice Matters.”
Trump said he will attend the Manhattan federal trial. While the former president intends to testify, he won’t be allowed to argue that he didn’t sexually assault Carroll, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled last week. That’s because a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a separate civil trial in May, although it didn’t find him liable for rape.
Trump chose not to attend the earlier trial, where he was also found to have defamed the bestselling author in 2022 by calling her a “con job.”
Carroll first publicly accused Trump of rape in 2019, describing in a book excerpt how, sometime around 1996, the real estate magnate attacked her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store. After Trump denied the charge, Carroll sued him, first for defamation and, in 2022, for battery and defamation under a New York state law that temporarily put the statute of limitations on hold for alleged sexual assault victims. The cases were moved to federal court.
The new trial that begins Tuesday will focus on what Trump should have to pay for defaming Carroll after she first accused him of rape. The allegedly defamatory statements at issue include: ”Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity.” Jurors will be asked whether those statements harmed Carroll and, if they did, how much she should get in damages.
Trump was ordered to pay $5 million in combined damages for sexual abuse and defamation in the May trial.
What is this trial about?
The trial is only focused on any potential damages Trump might have to pay for his 2019 statements. A jury will be tasked with determining whether his remarks harmed Carroll and, if so, how to quantify that harm in dollars. The jury will also have to decide if Trump acted maliciously and should therefore be punished with additional damages.
“I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump told reporters in the White House. Carroll said she confided in two friends soon after the attack but chose not to go to the police at the time, and didn’t come forward publicly until numerous other women accused Trump of assault during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump has adamantly denied the allegations, saying he has never met Carroll, but he was found civilly liable for sexual abuse after a trial in which Carroll testified and he chose not to appear.
Trump tried to argue that he is protected from the lawsuit by presidential immunity because the statements responded to allegations that threatened his ability to govern effectively. But Kaplan and an appeals court both ruled he had waived that argument by waiting too long to raise it.
Will Trump testify?
Trump has said he plans to testify “to explain I don’t know who the hell she is.” His lawyer said in a Sunday letter to the court that there is “considerable testimony” Trump can offer in his defense while respecting the court’s restrictions, including an argument that he shouldn’t be punished with extra damages because he didn’t act maliciously.
Kaplan on Friday night denied a request from Trump to delay the trial to allow him to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral, but he did say that if the trial concludes this week apart from Trump’s testimony, Trump will be allowed to testify the following week.
Trump also raised the death in a failed request to delay closing arguments in a New York civil fraud case last week. Funeral preparations didn’t prevent Trump from campaigning in Iowa over the weekend ahead of the state’s presidential nomination caucuses on Monday.
On Tuesday, before jury selection got underway, Kaplan again refused to suspend the trial for the funeral, in a fiery exchange between the judge and the former president’s lawyers.
Trump attorney Michael Madaio argued that the trial shouldn’t happen at all and that the judge had made “inconsistent and unfair” rulings against Trump. Madaio said the rulings “drastically changed our ability to defend this case and largely stripped us of our defenses.”
Another Trump attorney, Alina Habba, then requested that the trial be adjourned on Thursday for the funeral of former first lady Melania Trump’s mother, Amalija Knavs.
“I am not stopping him from being there,” Kaplan replied.
Habba responded: “No, you’re stopping him from being here.”
Kaplan agreed to let Trump testify on Monday if he wants, even if the trial is otherwise finished by Thursday.
Potential juror worked for Ivanka Trump
During the jury selection, Trump also twisted around in his chair to look at a prospective juror who said she had worked in a communications capacity for his daughter Ivanka Trump’s company in 2017 and 2018. Another potential juror said he’s a lawyer who has worked on unrelated issues with the firm representing Carroll. Both said they could be fair and impartial and remained among prospective jurors.
After several dozen prospective jurors were sworn in, Trump shook his head as Kaplan described the case in general terms and explained that for purposes of the trial, it had already been determined that Trump “did sexually assault Ms. Carroll.”
Carroll’s lawyer asked Kaplan to consider a series of measures to prevent Trump from turning the trial “into a circus,” such as requiring Trump to swear under oath to abide by limits and cutting short his testimony if he crosses the line. The lawyer cited Trump’s attacks on both a judge and the New York attorney general when he was given a brief opportunity to make his closing argument alongside his attorneys in the civil fraud case. The judge in that case urged an attorney to “control” the former president.
Trump’s lawyer shot back Sunday that Trump is “well aware” of restrictions on his testimony in the Carroll case, and that it would be unjust to try to force him to say he is guilty of acts he denies.
Kaplan was circumspect in a written opinion about what he might do to ensure his rulings and the law are followed, saying he will take measures he “finds appropriate.”
How much could it cost Trump?
Damages expert Ashlee Humphreys, a Northwestern University professor who helped two election workers get a $148 million defamation judgment against former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, is set to testify for Carroll as well. Trump’s legal team tried to get her booted from the case, but the judge said their request was late and their criticisms of her methodology are fair game for cross-examination.
Humphreys estimated it would take between $2.1 million and $12.1 million to repair damage to Carroll’s reputation. Carroll wants not just compensation for the alleged harm she suffered, but also punitive damages, arguing that Trump’s ongoing statements against her since her victory in May “show the depth of his malice” and the need for a hefty verdict to punish and deter him.