Two other women testified that Trump tried to force himself on them. To buttress her testimony, two friends of Carroll testified that she told them about Trump's attack shortly after it happened. Carroll said she and the prominent real estate mogul chatted and flirted amiably before things turned violent, and he attacked her in a store dressing room.Ĭarroll said she stayed silent about the incident for years because she feared retribution from Trump and his powerful allies she eventually decided to write about Trump in a 2019 memoir. Trump's attorneys, meanwhile, argued that Carroll made up her story for financial gain and to attack the ex-president politically.ĭuring the course of the trial, Carroll testified for three days about her encounter with Trump at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1996. The jurors began their deliberations a day after attorneys for Carroll and Trump made their final arguments.Ĭarroll's attorneys argued that Trump has a history of pouncing on women and stressed that he refused to appear at the two-week trial to defend himself. If anything, Trump's numbers went up after his indictment in New York in late March. Other Republican candidates, including Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, did not have an initial comment on the verdict. What it means.Īsa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who is also running for president in 2024, said "the jury verdict should be treated with seriousness and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump." Watch Video: Donald Trump found liable in civil sexual abuse case. "That sound you hear is Trump's polling numbers going up in the Republican primary," said Mike Madrid, an anti-Trump Republican political consultant. Some said it might help the ex-president with Republicans, given his constant and unfounded complaint that the Carroll lawsuit and other investigations are a Democratic plot to defeat him. No one knows for sure, as no major candidate found liable for sexual abuse has ever sought the presidency. We’ll obviously be appealing those other findings.” How will the verdict affect Trump politically?Ĭampaign operatives and political observers began assessing how the verdict might affect Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina told reporters that he found the verdict "strange" because "this was a rape case all along and the jury rejected that, made other findings. Jurors also found that Trump's rhetorical attacks on Carroll in social media posts were "defamatory," "false," and made "with actual malice." The jury was also asked to determine if Trump's conduct was "willfully or wantonly negligent, reckless, or done with a conscious disregard of the rights of Ms. The jury checked "no" on the rape question. District Judge Lewis Kaplan asked jurors to decide whether the "preponderance of the evidence" shows that Trump "raped," "sexually abused," or "forcibly touched" Carroll. They had several alternative verdicts to consider. The jury was not asked to find Trump "guilty" or "not guilty," but whether he was liable for an attack on Carroll. This is a civil case, not a criminal one. This is not the first legal setback for Trump, who is under criminal indictment in New York City over a hush money case the former president remains under criminal investigation in at least three other cases, two of them involving efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss. The sexual abuse verdict comes as Trump remains the frontrunner for the Republican presidential campaign in 2024. Previously 19 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. A smiling Carroll did not stop to speak with reporters after the verdict.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |