Donald Trump used his platform while he was US president to try to wreck E Jean Carroll’s name after she accused him of rape, her lawyer argued in a New York court on Tuesday, adding that Trump had also emboldened hardline followers to hurl smears and threats at her.
“He had the biggest microphone on the planet … He used it to tear her reputation to shreds – to defame her,” Shawn Crowley, one of Carroll’s attorneys, said during opening statements in the former Elle columnist’s second defamation trial against Trump, which opened in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday afternoon.
“Is it any wonder that when Donald Trump spoke from the White House, people all across the country listened and many, many believed what he said? Of course not,” Crowley said.
“When Donald Trump called Ms Carroll a liar and a fraud, they listened and they believed and they decided to go after her,” she added.
Trump was in court for jury selection, just hours after a landslide victory in the Republican Iowa caucuses as he runs for re-election, despite numerous civil and criminal court cases against him. Before selection started, Trump’s lead lawyer on this case, Alina Habba, told the judge that his team intended to call him as a witness.
A previous trial jury in another, related lawsuit by the New York writer determined that the former US president sexually abused her.
Carroll said that Trump raped her in a dressing room of the upscale Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman nearly 30 years ago. She first publicly came forward five years ago with an excerpt from her then forthcoming book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, in New York magazine.
Trump, at the time of the allegation still president, immediately went on the attack, claiming: “I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book – that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section.” She filed suit against him in 2019, saying Trump’s denials harmed her reputation.
Carroll could not pursue legal action against Trump then for the claimed sexual assault, as it had fallen outside New York’s civil statute of limitations. The advent of New York state’s Adult Survivors Act in 2022 – which provided a one-year window allowing adult survivors of sexual misconduct to sue their accused abusers – enabled her to sue Trump again, for the underlying assault claim.
That lawsuit also included defamation claims for Trump’s comments about her after he left the White House. This second lawsuit went on trial in April 2023 and jurors awarded her $5m, finding Trump liable of sexual abuse and defamation for the post-presidency comments.
This week’s trial will only weigh damages for Trump’s denials while he was president, which means it will in effect boil down to how much he must pay her. The judge overseeing this case, Lewis Kaplan, will not allow Trump’s team to relitigate Carroll’s claims.
“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 in a prior court ruling.
“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.”
Crowley emphasized this point, which Kaplan had conveyed to jurors, during her opening.
“In the spring of 1996, Donald Trump sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll. He managed to get her alone in an empty department store [room] one evening and he sexually assaulted her. That’s a fact,” she said. “As Judge Kaplan just instructed you, that fact has been proven and a jury sitting in the exact seats that you’re sitting in now found that it happened.
“It has been proven that Donald Trump assaulted Ms Carroll. It has been proven that Donald Trump defamed her when he lied and said it never happened and accused her of making up a story for all sorts of terrible reasons,” Crowley said.
Trump arrived in court sporting a dark suit and bright red tie. Despite facing stiff penalties for denying Carroll’s claims, Trump once again doubled down on such comments.
Trump – or someone acting on his behalf – posted an excerpt of Carroll’s interview with Anderson Cooper, in which she discussed her claims, to Truth Social. “Can you believe I have to defend myself against this woman’s fake story?!” he wrote.
Trump’s Truth Social featured a barrage of other posts which attempted to discredit Carroll, as well as criticism of the judge.
“The only right, honest, and lawful thing that Clinton-appointed Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has so far been unable to see clearly because of his absolute hatred of Donald J Trump (ME!), can do is to end this unAmerican injustice being done to a President of the United States, who was wrongfully accused by a woman he never met, saw, or touched (a photo line does not count!), and knows absolutely nothing about,” Trump said.
Crowley referred to Trump’s posts criticizing Carroll on the day of her trial, in explaining the point of damages.
“How much money will it take to make him stop? Because he has not stopped,” Crowley said. “For more than four years, he has not stopped.
“While he was sitting there, he posted more defamatory statements, more lies about Ms Carroll … by our last count, 22 posts just today,” Crowley said.
“We submit that that number should be significant, very significant … Donald Trump, after all, is a self-proclaimed billionaire,” she added.
Trump later left the courthouse around 2pm and CNN reported that he was en route to New Hampshire for a campaign event.
Earlier, two prospective jurors were rejected from the panel during selection after answering in the affirmative when asked if they thought the 2020 presidential election had been “stolen” by Joe Biden.
Later, Habba, who presented the opening for Trump’s team, suggested that Carroll was at fault for the backlash.
“I need you, as a jury, to remember this and this is very important: Ms Carroll had a duty to minimize the effect of the statements, not exacerbate them,” Habba claimed.
“She is looking for you to give her a windfall because some people on social media said mean things about her,” she also said. “But in today’s day and age, the internet always has something to say, and it’s not always going to be nice.”
