As Trump Continues to Insult E. Jean Carroll, 2nd Defamation Trial Opens

The writer has already won $5 million for his sexual abuse and his
subsequent denials. But the former president still claims he does not
know who she is.

A Manhattan jury will be asked a narrow question this week: How much
money must former President Donald J. Trump pay the writer E. Jean
Carroll for defaming her after she accused him of raping her?

Ms. Carroll’s chance encounter decades ago at the Bergdorf Goodman
department store, in which she said Mr. Trump shoved her against a
dressing room wall, pulled down her tights and forced himself on her,
was already the focus of a trial last year. A jury in May awarded Ms.
Carroll just over $2 million for the assault and nearly $3 million for
defamation over Mr. Trump’s remark in October 2022 calling her claim “a
complete con job.”

The trial starting Tuesday focuses on separate statements by Mr. Trump
in June 2019, directly after Ms. Carroll disclosed her allegation in New
York magazine. At the time, Mr. Trump called her claim “totally false,”
saying that he had never met Ms. Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice
columnist, and that she invented a story to sell a book.

Now, Mr. Trump says he wants to attend and testify at Ms. Carroll’s
trial, something he didn’t do in the earlier case. That’s sparked a
bitter dispute between lawyers for Ms. Carroll, 80, and Mr. Trump, 77,
over what the former president could say if he took the stand, and
whether he would stray beyond strict boundaries the judge has set.

The judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, has ruled that given the jury’s findings in
the first trial, Mr. Trump cannot now contest Ms. Carroll’s version of
events — as he frequently does in public statements.

“Mr. Trump is precluded from offering any testimony, evidence or
argument suggesting or implying that he did not sexually assault Ms.
Carroll, that she fabricated her account of the assault or that she had
any motive to do so,” Judge Kaplan wrote in an opinion on Jan. 9.

The judge had also previously ruled that Ms. Carroll does not need to
prove again that Mr. Trump’s comments in 2019 were defamatory, finding
they were substantially the same as those that prompted last year’s award.

“This trial will not be a ‘do over’ of the previous trial,” Judge Kaplan
wrote on Jan. 9.

Ms. Carroll is seeking $10 million in damages for harm to her
reputation, plus unspecified punitive damages, which are intended to
deter misconduct.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/15/nyregion/e-jean-carroll-trump-defamation-trial.html

What a sterling candidate the orange goon makes. No wonder y'all are for
him. HawHawHaw!