PolitiSage Stands with E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump in Trial This Week
Trump has already been found guilty of rape. This week the piper tells him how much he'll have to pay.
E. Jean Carroll was the first woman to deal Donald Trump a serious blow after decades of women’s trying to get people to understand that he was guilty of sexual abuse. Twenty-six women have accused him of sexual harassment, sexual assault or outright rape. Carroll was the first of these cases to make it to trial—and her incredibly brave, grounded, painfully explicit testimony and the excellent case brought by Roberta Kaplan and her team brought the first reckoning against this serial predator.
This week Carroll takes Trump back to court, where judge Lewis Kaplan (unrelated to Roberta Kaplan) will decide how much Trump has to pay her for his endless vicious published lies told in an attempt to defame Carroll.
To sum up: In May, a jury unanimously found Trump liable for sexual abuse and battery against Carroll in the mid-1990s and for defaming her in 2022 while denying the assault. That conviction levied $5 million in damages against him. Then, in September of 2023, Kaplan ruled that as Trump has already been found liable for sexual abuse, his 2019 tirades against Carroll are defamatory by default.
Now Carroll, against whom Trump’s defamations have continued, is seeking up to $12 million in damages. And she should get every penny of it. He cost her job, lied about her repeatedly, dangerously stoked public sentiment against her, and incessantly attacked and defamed her.
Trump’s position now is outright horrible. And, in view of his repeatedly lies, his incessant playing to the cameras in and outside court for political influence, his eternal denials, and his attempts to intimidate court officials, Judge Kaplan laid down some ground rules about what he can’t do this Tuesday.
As reported by The Guardian:
On 9 January, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Trump cannot deny the sexual assault, pointing to a jury’s previous finding.
“Consequently, the fact that Mr Trump sexually abused – indeed, raped – Ms Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case,” Kaplan also said.
“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.”
This ruling means that Trump cannot fight Carroll’s claims at this trial. Jurors are tasked with deciding only if Trump defamed her with his 2019 statements and, if so, the financial penalties associated with said denial.
Everybody who is sick of hearing the sound of this man’s mean mouth hopes Judge Kaplan’s instructions—and the threat he’ll be found in contempt if he does violates them—are enough to dissuade Trump from “testifying” because we all know that testimony is not what we’ll get: we’ll get a punishing rant that plays to his hypnotized base in the best case and an incitement to violence in the very likely scenario that if he opens his mouth we’ll get the worst case.
All that said, E. Jean Carroll will come out on top in this one, but it will take the guts and grace it’s taken before.
We stand amazed, E. Jean, and we are forever in your debt. Safe journey, dear one.