One of Donald Trump’s lawyers has told a jury that it’s OK to hate the former US president, “but there’s a time and secret place for that”.
Defence lawyer Joe Tacopina’s message to the jury in a civil trial in Manhattan on Tuesday (local time) followed an opening statement from the lawyer for the woman who has accused Mr Trump of rape.
It came after E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer Shawn Crowley said her accusation that the former president raped her in the 1990s was not a “he said, she said” dispute.
Ms Crowley, who represents the former Elle magazine advice columnist, said in her opening statement that Mr Trump “slammed Ms Carroll against the wall” and “pressed his lips to hers”, an account other witnesses were prepared to verify.
“This is not a ‘he said, she said’ case,” Ms Crowley said in federal court in Manhattan.
She told jurors they would also hear testimony from two other women who say Mr Trump sexually assaulted them, which Mr Trump denies.
Mr Tacopina countered in his opening statement that the evidence would show the former US president did not assault Carroll.
Mr Tacopina also asked jurors in strongly Democratic Manhattan to set aside their feelings for Trump, a Republican and former New Yorker who has inspired strong opinions from across the political spectrum.
“You can hate Donald Trump. It’s OK,” he said. “But there’s a time and secret place for that: It’s the ballot box.”
Earlier in the day, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan sat nine jurors who will decide whether Mr Trump raped Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the mid-1990s and defamed her by denying it happened.
In an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform, Mr Trump, 76, called Carroll’s rape claim a “hoax” and “complete scam”. He said she made it up to promote her memoir, as he declared Carroll was “not my type!”
Carroll, 79, is seeking unspecified damages for pain and suffering, psychological harm and invasion of privacy.
Her lawsuit invoked a new state law in New York giving adult sexual abuse victims a one-year window to sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations expired long ago.
The trial is expected to resume on Wednesday and last one to two weeks.
Carroll’s case is among a slew of lawsuits and probes facing Mr Trump, the Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race.
It could also be politically damaging as witnesses detail Mr Trump’s alleged sexual misconduct, all of which he denies.
Among the other cases is Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s criminal case over hush money payments to a porn star. Mr Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts on April 4 at a New York state courthouse, a three-minute walk from Tuesday’s trial.
Carroll’s trial began the same day President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said he would seek a second White House term.
Before juror questioning began, Judge Kaplan ordered Mr Trump’s and Carroll’s lawyers to tell their clients and witnesses not to make statements that could “incite violence or civil unrest”.
He screened jurors for bias, asking if they agreed with Mr Trump that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, or thought the #MeToo movement – which Carroll has said inspired her to come forward – would undercut their impartiality. None said they did.
Judge Kaplan is also keeping jurors anonymous from the public and the lawyers, to shield them from potential harassment by Trump supporters. He even suggested that jurors use fake names when speaking with one another.
Mr Trump did not attend on Tuesday and is not required to. According to lawyers from both sides, he is unlikely to testify.
He has repeatedly attacked Carroll and in personal terms, once calling her mentally ill.
Carroll said her encounter with Mr Trump at Bergdorf Goodman occurred in late 1995 or early 1996.
She said Mr Trump recognised her, calling her “that advice lady”, and asked for help in buying a gift for another woman.
Carroll said Mr Trump then “manoeuvred” her into a dressing room where he shut the door, forced her against a wall, pulled down her tights and penetrated her.
“She struggled to break free, but she couldn’t,” Ms Crowley said in her opening statement.
“Trump was about twice her size.”
Carroll managed to free herself after two to three minutes.
Mr Trump’s lawyers may try to undermine Carroll’s credibility by noting that she did not call the police, remained publicly silent for more than two decades and cannot remember the day or month of her alleged attack.
Carroll is also suing Mr Trump for defamation after he first denied her rape claim in June 2019, when he was still president. That case remains pending before Judge Kaplan.
– with AAP
