This American Life had a segment about how, back in 2020, Carroll recorded as series of interviews with women who had accused convicted sex offender Donald Trump (CSODT) of sexual assault or harassment. They played her interview with Jessica Leeds who had also testified at the trial.

In cases like Carroll’s, much depends on how credible each side is but that is hard to gauge based on the written word. I have never seen or heard Carroll live and of course I did not see the trial so could not judge how the jury might have perceived them. But when I listed to this 16-minute discussion between the two women, I could understand why the jury seemed to have no difficulty whatsoever in finding them to be credible.

Rebecca Traister discussed with On The Media host Brooke Gladstone about what the trial and verdict of CSODT tells us. She says that it shows how long it takes for movements such as #MeToo to gain ground and that when we take the longer view, we see how significant the result was and what an important victory it was not just for Carroll. She says that we make a mistake by taking short-term setbacks as definitive.

The 20 minute interview can be heard here.

I must admit I was surprised at how quickly the jury came to its verdict that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll and defamed her by accusing her of perpetrating a hoax. I had predicted that he might get off simply because he was an ex-president and am glad to have been proven wrong. The fact that they took less than three hours to bring in their verdict means that they had no doubts or major disagreements about their decision on the actual charges. Most of their time was likely spent on deciding what the size of the financial penalties should be.

This case shows that convicted sex offender Trump’s constant lying has finally caught up with him. In cases like this where there is no physical evidence and adjudication depends on which side the jury finds more credible, the indisputable fact that convicted sex offender Trump has not only boasted of sexually assaulting women but also lies shamelessly had to have swung the jury in Carroll’s favor.

Convicted sex offender Trump will of course appeal, if only because he has to, to try and save face. It will be interesting to see on what grounds he will appeal. The strategy to do so on the basis that he was denied the chance to testify got torpedoed when the judge allowed him to apply at the last minute to testify but he failed to do so. His lawyers may try to argue that the judge made biased decisions against them. They may also try to argue that some kinds of evidence (such as the infamous Access Hollywood tape) should not have been allowed. They may also object to the fact that women who were not part of the case were allowed to testify about convicted sex offender Trump assaulting them in order to show a pattern of behavior by him.
[Read more…]

After jury deliberations began in the battery and defamation charges brought against him by E. Jean Carroll, Trump brazenly lied yet again, saying via his social media:

Waiting for a jury decision on a False Accusation where I, despite being a current political candidate and leading all others in both parties, am not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me. In the meantime, the other side has a book falsely accusing me of Rape, & is working with the press. I will therefore not speak until after the trial, but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me, as a candidate, no matter the outcome! (My bolding-MS]

This is a flat-out lie. No one was stopping him from testifying. As I posted earlier today, Trump’s strategy all along was to avoid testifying to avoid being cross-examined, wait until it was too late to testify in person by getting on the witness list, say at the last minute that he wanted to testify while expecting to be denied, and then claim that he was not allowed because the judge was biased against him and use that as a basis for appeal.

The judge checkmated him by giving him a window of time to apply to testify, which he did not use. But he now goes ahead anyway and says that he was denied the chance to speak.

This ploy might work with his devoted supporters but an appeals court will summarily reject that argument should he be found guilty.

The possible verdicts that the jury can return, as told to them by the judge:

The jury can return one of several verdicts.

It can find that Trump raped Carroll, who was in the front row of the court on Tuesday. Alternatively, if it does not believe the evidence proves rape, it can find he is responsible for sexual abuse, meaning forcible sexual contact without consent.

If the jurors do not believe either of those findings are applicable, then they can return a verdict of forcible touching, or they can clear Trump. If they find Trump is responsible for sexual abuse in any form, the jurors will also have to assess damages.

It appears that I was mistaken when I said earlier that a civil case requires just a 5/6th majority which in a jury of nine people would require eight to bring in a verdict of guilty. That seems to apply only in New York state courts. It seems that because this is in a federal court, the verdict must be unanimous, which improves Trump’s chances.

The jury in the civil battery and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump is scheduled to retire to consider the verdict today.

Last Thursday, while on a golf trip to Ireland, Trump said that he would be cutting short his trip and returning to the US so as to ‘confront’ his rape accuser at his trial, even though he had not been on the original witness list.

Trump told reporters last week he would “probably attend” the trial.

“I’m going back to New York. I was falsely accused by this woman, I have no idea who she is – it’s ridiculous,” he claimed. “I’ll be going back early because a woman made a claim that is totally false, it’s fake,” he added.

Trump also called the case a “political attack” and claimed the judge was “extremely hostile” and “doesn’t like me very much.”

But shortly after that, his lawyer Joe Tacopina said in court that they were resting their case and usually that closes the door to any more witnesses. I think Trump made his statement as an act of bravado, never intending to carry it out, but designed to show his confidence and also so that when the judge refused to allow him to testify, he could once again claim that the judge was biased against him.

But US district judge Lewis Kaplan judge called his bluff and said that he would leave the window open until Sunday evening for Tacopina to file a request for Trump to appear. But of course Trump chickened out, no such request was made, and he did not testify.
[Read more…]

The last witness for E. Jean Carroll in her rape and assault case against Trump is a close friend of hers (Carol Martin) who testified that Carroll had told her about her experience at the hands of Trump just two days after the attack but that she had advised her not to go to the police because Trump would bury her with lawyers.

Donald Trump loves to sneer at and belittle people. It is the sign of a petty and insecure person and a bully, and in his case it could lead to his downfall. Although he has not appeared as a witness in the trial, the video recording of his deposition was played and it featured something that could hurt his case.

Trump seems to think that his sneering statement that Carroll “was not my type”, something that he has said at public meetings and in his deposition, would be a good defense against the assault charge. The catch is that when shown a photograph from long ago with Carroll and another man and woman and asked to identify them, he identified the woman facing the camera (Carroll) as his then-wife Marla Maples, even though it was the other woman who was Maples. So much for Carroll ‘not being his type’. he could have simply said that he had never met her. But no, he had to sneer that she was not his type. He just cannot help being a jerk.
[Read more…]

Yesterday Lisa Birnbach, one of E. Jean Carroll’s friends, gave testimony at the trial about how Carroll had called her immediately after the alleged rape by Donald Trump. She described how Carroll had been hyperventilating as she described what Trump had done to her. She said that she had urged Carroll to go to the police because what had happened to her was rape but Carroll refused and asked her not to tell anyone about it and she had honored that request all these years.

Another woman described how Trump assaulted her on a plane.

The court also heard dramatic testimony from a businesswoman, Jessica Leeds, who said Trump grabbed her breast and attempted to put his hand up her skirt on a flight in 1979.

Leeds is one of two women the judge has ruled can give evidence about the former president’s alleged sexual assaults. She told the jury she was seated next to Trump on a flight to New York. After chatting for a while and eating dinner, he suddenly “decided to kiss me and grope me”.

“He was trying to kiss me. He was trying to pull me towards him. He was grabbing my breasts. It was like he had 40m hands.

“It was when he started putting his hand up my skirt, that gave me a jolt of strength.”

Leeds said she was able to pull away and fled to the back of the plane. She went public with her account of the alleged attack weeks before the 2016 presidential election, after Trump denied having sexually assaulted women.

Leeds said she saw Trump three years later, when she was volunteering at a Humane Society event.

“He looked at me and he said, ‘I remember you, you’re that cunt from the airplane,’” Leeds said. “It was like a bucket of cold water thrown over my head.”

There seems to be no limit to the amount of evidence revealing what a disgusting creep Trump is.

The news reports do not mention any cross examination by Trump’s lawyers of these two witnesses but the trial is still ongoing so maybe that will come later. Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina seems to be the bulldog type and has not shown himself to be subtle and sensitive. The two women are now 79 and 81 years old and subjecting elderly women to brutal cross-examinations may not play well with a jury.

Interestingly, the Leeds story with all its graphic details was prominently reported in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post as well. I would have thought they would downplay or even ignore it. I wonder what that says, if anything, about the state of the Trump-Murdoch alliance.