Donald Trump and writer E Jean Carroll head to court for another trial - defamation and damages - Trump must pay $83.3 million

General Chat In The News
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Continuing the discussion from USA : Donald Trump v E Jean Carroll - New : Judge limits second E Jean Carroll trial to damages:

A Manhattan jury will hear arguments this week on how much former US president Donald Trump should pay a writer who accused him of rape. This is the second time he will face former Elle magazine columnist E Jean Carroll in court. A jury already found he sexually assaulted and defamed the writer, awarding her $5m (£3.9m) last year.

This trial, starting on Tuesday, focuses on separate statements that Mr Trump made in June 2019. That was directly after Ms Carroll first accused him of rape in a New York magazine piece. At the time, Mr Trump said her claim was “totally false”. He also alleged that he had never heard of Ms Carroll and that she had invented the story to sell her memoir.

A jury found in May that Mr Trump was liable for sexually abusing her and for defamation, after he called her accusations “a hoax and a lie”. However, the jury did not find Mr Trump liable for raping Ms Carroll in the dressing room of department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s, as she had alleged.

In the aftermath of the first trial, Judge Lewis Kaplan - who is overseeing this second defamation trial - ruled that Ms Carroll does not need to prove again that Mr Trump made defamatory comments against her. Therefore, this second trial will only focus on determining damages owed to her. Ms Carroll is seeking $10m in compensation for harm to her reputation.

Mr Trump has signalled that he wants to testify, but Judge Kaplan has issued a stern warning to the former president. “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 earlier this month.

Ms Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan (who is not related to Judge Kaplan), has said that Mr Trump will attempt to “sow chaos” with his testimony. She has asked that he state under oath that he understands the limits of what he can say. “There are any number of reasons why Mr Trump might perceive a personal or political benefit from intentionally turning this trial into a circus,” she wrote in a memo to Judge Kaplan.

In response, Mr Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said the former president is “well aware” of the court’s ruling and “the strict confines placed on his testimony”.

It seems inevitable that Trump will deliver a tirade of personal abuse against his accuser and the prosecution team in order to appeal to the MAGA morons, who expect him to cry “witch-hunt”, “political persecution”, etc.

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It’s all timed well for his presidential campaign.Anyone else I would suspect it may have been planned. :grinning:

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Are his backers not tired of paying for all these legal fees? If they’re trying to make a point, I’m not seeing it.

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A lawyer for writer E. Jean Carroll urged jurors to force former President Donald Trump to pay for repeatedly defaming her in denying her account of him sexually assaulting her in a New York department store in the 1990s.

“Members of the jury, it’s time to hold him accountable and show him no one is above the law,” Carroll’s lawyer Shawn Crowley said in opening arguments of Trump’s defamation trial in Manhattan federal court.

Trump was in the courtroom as prospective jurors began being questioned for the trial, which kicked off a day after he scored a landslide win in the Iowa Republican caucuses.

Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba commenced with a personal rebuttal of Ms. Carroll - it will, inevitably, not be confirmed by any evidence later.

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She’s sold her soul to the MAGA.
I wonder how long before she get’s thrown under that bus?

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Thrown under a bus or jumps ship:

Joe Tacopina requested to withdraw his firm’s legal services from E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation and battery case against Trump, which awarded the former Elle columnist $5 million in damages last May.

Tacopina filed the declaration about the Carroll case on Monday.

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E Jean Carroll took the witness stand on Wednesday morning in her defamation trial against Donald Trump, marking the first time she confronted the ex-president in a courtroom. Carroll’s testimony so incensed Trump that he had numerous outbursts, prompting the judge to warn that he could be kicked out of court as the former commander-in-chief taunted him.

When Carroll first took the stand, Trump could be seen whispering to his lead attorney, Alina Habba. He sat with slightly hunched shoulders. As Carroll testified, Trump complained audibly and appeared to double down on defamatory denials, her lawyer said during a morning break in the proceedings.

“Mr Trump has been sitting at the back table and has been loudly saying things throughout Ms Carroll’s testimony,” said attorney Shawn Crowley. They included claims that her comments were false and the statement: “She now seems to have gotten her memory back. It’s loud enough for us to hear it,” Crowley said, so “I imagine it’s loud enough for the jury to hear it.”

Before court resumed after the break, Judge Lewis Kaplan cautioned: “I’m just going to ask Mr Trump to take special care to keep his voice down when conferring with counsel, so that the jury does not over-hear.”

“Mr Trump has the right to be present here, that right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive which is what has been reported to me and if he disregards court orders,” Kaplan said. “Mr Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial … I understand you are probably very eager for me to do that.”

“I would love it, I would love it,” Trump said and gestured.

Indeed he would, for then he becomes a victim of the “witch-hunt” to his MAGA mugs.

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Other politicians must be really envious.The more he acts like a complete arse the more popular he gets.

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Such is the nature of the demagogue … :neutral_face:

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Not much of the trial seems to get reported in the UK but this caught my eye:

E Jean Carroll’s New York defamation trial against Donald Trump resumed on Thursday with the ex-president’s lawyer trying to discredit her on cross-examination with a bizarre dialectic about genitals and by intimating that she has loose morals.

“Did you ever post any tweets that could be considered sexually explicit?” Alina Habba, Trump’s lead attorney, asked. Carroll’s team objected. Presiding judge Lewis Kaplan sustained the objection.

As Habba hammered on about the sexual commentary on Carroll’s social media accounts (the former Elle columnist has written about sex and relationships for years), questioning took a turn for the absurd.

“Ms Carroll, what does this say: ‘What CAN be done about the penis? It gets large when you want it small, and stays small when you want it large,’” Habba asked, showing a 2013 tweet. “Those were your words, correct?”

“Yes,” Carroll said.

“And you posted them on a public social media account?”

“Yes.”

“And you left that on your Twitter account as we stand here today, correct?”

Carroll answered in the affirmative.

Pressed to explain the tweet, Carroll said: “It’s a philosophical question.”

“Sometimes a woman doesn’t feel like making love and the man wants to,” Carroll explained, adding that sometimes it’s the reverse.

“You discussed penises?” Habba said.

Carroll said: “Yes.”

Well, as a sex counsellor, she would, wouldn’t she but, no doubt, Habba saw the admission as a triumph for herself … :roll_eyes:

Elsewhere, Habba has been reported as having been admonished by the judge for being ignorant of court procedure - when to stand, when to sit, how to present documents to the court, etc.

She certainly has a higher opinion of herself than others have of her:

Alina Habba has, several times, asked Judge Lewis Kaplan to pause proceedings to allow the former president to travel to Florida for the funeral on Thursday of his mother-in-law, Amalija Knavs. “Your Honour, clearly we are not going to finish this trial tomorrow. This trial will go into next week. I am asking your honour to have the kindness that my client deserves to be with his family tomorrow and not have to choose to miss the trial that he has a right to be here for.”

Judge Kaplan denied the request, noting that Mr Trump has the right either to appear in person or be represented by counsel. “And nobody is stopping him from doing either. The application is denied. I will hear no further argument on it. None. Do you understand that word? None. Please sit down."

Ms Habba responded by asking the judge not to speak to her in that way. “I don’t like to be spoken to that way. I’m not going to speak to [Ms Carroll’s lawyer] Ms Kaplan like that. I will not speak to you like that. I am asking your honour to please refrain from speaking to me in that manner.”

Judge Kaplan did not acknowledge her protest and again reiterated that her request to adjourn the case was denied and — again — told her to sit down.

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“Somebody said to me, ‘Alina would you rather be smart or pretty?’ And I said, ‘Oh, easy, pretty. You can fake being smart,'” she added.

You’ve got to be good at it though

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Quite … and, clearly, she isn’t … :laughing:

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Before Trump took the stand, as both sides were discussing the potential scope of his testimony prior to jurors entering, Trump grumbled: “I never met this woman.”

Judge Kaplan shot back: “Keep your voice down. You’re interrupting these proceedings by talking loudly while you’re counsel is talking,” and that is not permitted, Judge Kaplan warned again.

Trump’s testimony lasted less than five minutes as the judge in this case, Lewis Kaplan, significantly limited what the ex-president could say in court.

“Ms Habba, you may call your next witness,” Judge Kaplan said at about 2.15pm local time.

“Thank you, your honor,” Habba said. “The defense calls President Donald Trump.

Trump stood by his testimony in the deposition and denied instructing anyone to hurt Ms Carroll.

“I have no more questions. Thank you,” Habba said.

A low-key performance from Trump … :man_shrugging:

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He had no option.The Judge struck a lot of his remarks off the record.

When she said that he corrected her with just his name Donald John Trump.

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lol he couldn’t even get his name right.

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After I read this, I was reading Reddit when I saw this. The stricken testimony started from the very beginning.

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He’s still the President as far as the MAGA mob are concerned.

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Donald Trump left court during closing arguments by Ms Carroll’s lawyer, who said Mr Trump was a liar who thought rules did not apply to him. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Ms Carroll’s lawyer, told the court that the record "will reflect that Mr Trump rose and walked out of the courtroom".

Before starting her final arguments, Ms Habba tried to introduce social media tweets that were not already in evidence, but the judge would not allow it. After a fiery back-and-forth, Judge Kaplan said: "Ms Habba, you are on the verge of spending some time in the lock-up, now sit down". (1)

Ms Habba, who has repeatedly traded barbs with the judge during this civil defamation trial, was heard swearing under her breath (2) away from the microphone as she sat down, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

In her closing arguments on Friday, Habba argued the jury should award Ms Carroll no damages, saying her arguments have “more holes than Swiss cheese”. Ms Habba told the court that Ms Carroll was happy to have the fame, claiming Ms Carroll now makes more money than she did in 2019, when the defamatory comments were made. She also sought to portray Ms Carroll as a “scandalous” character.

The jury will deliberate after Friday’s closing arguments, and the pressure of that eventual outcome has caused significant friction in the courtroom.

(1) Habba hasn’t got a clue about court procedure … :roll_eyes:

(2) Who does she think she is… :question:

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A juror had Covid symptoms,she claimed that she been exposed to it too.Hoping to delay the trial.But was seen on youtube at a big MAGA do that night.
All these sacrifices for Trump but she’ll be dumped soon enough.

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Small satisfaction but still I feel happy about the outcome.

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