A political meeting, a primary, a trial, a political meeting. For Donald Trump, the year 2024 is likely to look a lot like his day on Tuesday: the day after his clear electoral victory in Iowa and before a key vote in New Hampshire, the former president appeared in civil court in New York for a second defamation lawsuit brought by the former columnist of the American magazine SheElizabeth Jean Carroll.
While a jury already concluded last May that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll in 1996 and then defamed her in 2022, a new trial is taking place for similar comments he made when he was president, in 2019. But the facts having already been established, the jury assembled on Tuesday has only one mission: to determine the amount of damages. E. Jean Carroll, who had already obtained 5 million dollars in the first trial, this time demands 10 million.
A court transformed into a theater
Donald Trump, 77, kept his word and went as announced to the Manhattan courthouse to face his accuser. According to the judicial press which had access to the courtroom, the two protagonists did not exchange a glance all day. One of Donald Trump’s lawyers, Alina Habba, tried to be zealous in front of her client and protest decisions already made by Judge Kaplan. Who didn’t like it: “I’ve already considered what you had to say.” And I decided. In my courtroom, when a decision is made, it is the end of the argument, not the beginning.” The convoy of black limousines of the favorite of the Republican primary left the courthouse around 3 p.m. to join an electoral rally in New Hampshire, which votes next week.
A jury of 9 people protected by selected anonymity
“Have you ever attended a Donald Trump rally? » “Have you donated money to Obama, Clinton, Biden or Trump campaigns?” » Do you “belong” to extremist groups like QAnon, Antifa or the Proud Boys? The judge had a long line of questions for potential jurors. In the end, nine were chosen. A sign of the tensions surrounding the trials of Donald Trump, Judge Lewis Kaplan imposed anonymity on the jurors to prevent them from being targeted.
The amount of damages to be determined
The magistrate warned the jurors “that the only question at stake at the trial will be the harm caused to Ms. Carroll by the comments” which he already considers “defamatory”, “false”, and “malicious”.
On May 9, 2023, a jury in the same Manhattan federal civil court unanimously decided that Donald Trump had committed “sexual assault” on E. Jean Carroll in 1996 in a department store fitting room. New Yorker, and that he had also defamed her in October 2022. The jurors had sentenced Donald Trump, who appealed and was never criminally prosecuted in this case, to five million dollars in damages .
E. Jean Carroll had already filed a complaint after an outing by Donald Trump when he was president in 2019. He assured in front of the cameras that the accusations were “totally false” and that the columnist was “not (his) type”.
If Donald Trump remained silent in court, he attacked E. Jean Carroll on his social network Truth Social: “It’s hard to believe that I have to defend myself in the face of this woman’s bogus story”, he wrote, reposting old excerpts from TV interviews and messages on his accuser’s social networks.
“I have never seen this woman in my life […] I have no idea who she is,” Donald Trump reaffirmed last week about the writer, continuing to call her a liar or “crazy.” Comments which could once again be the subject of prosecution.