() — The civil trial for alleged assault and defamation by columnist E. Jean Carroll against former United States President Donald Trump is scheduled to begin this Tuesday.
Carroll alleges that Trump raped and forcibly groped her in the fitting room of a high-end Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Trump denies the charges and has called Carroll “not my type.”
Unlike his dramatic appearance in New York state court earlier this month, Trump is unlikely to appear in Manhattan federal court, his lawyers said, unless he is called to testify in Carroll’s case. or choose to take the stand on your own for your defense. Because it is a civil case, he is not required to appear.
Jury selection begins Tuesday and the trial is expected to last up to two weeks.
Trump is not being criminally prosecuted over Carroll’s rape allegations. Carroll did not specify a dollar amount in her civil lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, but is seeking money damages and a retraction of an October 2022 statement Trump made about her on social media.
Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll, John Johnson and Ivana Trump at an NBC party, late 1980s. (Credit: US District Court, Manhattan)
This is what you should know:
How will the jury selection be?
Nearly four years after Carroll first went public with the allegations in 2019, a jury is expected to be formed. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan is expected to select a pool of about 100 potential jurors.
The lawyers have asked the judge to cross-examine the jury on issues including their potential biases and their knowledge of Carroll, Trump and pending legal issues facing Trump in unrelated cases like his recent indictment in New York County criminal court.
The jury will remain anonymous to the public and attorneys, the judge ruled. The decision was influenced in part by Trump’s threats to the state Supreme Court judge overseeing his criminal case in New York.
Lawyers for Carroll and Trump could give opening statements later this Tuesday.
Why is Carroll suing Trump?
Carroll filed the suit last November under the Adult Survivors Law of New York in 2022, which opened a look-back window for sexual assault allegations like Carroll’s with statutes of limitations long expired.
The former Elle columnist first broke her story in June 2019 by publishing an excerpt from her book “What We Need Men For” in New York Magazine, ahead of the book’s release.
“And even though I’m not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“In the meantime, and for the record, E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth, she is a woman I had nothing to do with, did not know, and would have no interest in knowing if I ever had the chance. Now all I have to do is go through more years of legal bullshit to clear my name of her false attacks and her lawyer’s against me. This can only happen to ‘Trump’!”
The lawsuit argues that Carroll’s denial of the allegations is defamatory and caused her emotional, reputational and professional damage.
Carroll’s description of the alleged rape
Carroll’s account of the alleged rape after meeting Trump at Bergdorf Goodman, in the fall of 1995 or spring of 1996, is detailed in the lawsuit.
She recalled telling Trump that she was 52 at the time. Both are now in their 70s.
She helped Trump shop for “a girl” when he recognized her leaving the store, Carroll says.
“Hey, you’re the advice lady!” he told her, according to the lawsuit. “Hey, you’re that real estate mogul!” she replied.
Trump then began what began as joyous shopping in the lingerie department, where he suggested that Carroll try on a bodysuit, the lawsuit alleges. Carroll says Trump then led her into a dressing room, where she jokingly suggested that she try on the lingerie.
Once in the locker room, Trump “pounced on Carroll, pushing her against the wall, hitting her head fairly hard and putting his mouth on her lips,” the lawsuit says. Carroll counterattacked and Trump pushed her against the wall again, “sliding her hand under her coat and pulling down her stockings,” the lawsuit says.
“Trump opened his coat and unbuttoned his pants. Trump then pushed her fingers around Carroll’s genitals and forced her penis inside of her,” the lawsuit alleges.
Carroll finally pushed him with her knee and ran out of the dressing room to leave the store, according to the lawsuit.
The former president categorically denies that the interaction and aggression ever occurred.
After Carroll went public with this, Trump said he “never met this person.”
Trump’s attorney has made several legal attempts to have the lawsuit with Carroll dismissed and once tried to counter-sue her, alleging that Carroll violated New York’s anti-SLAPP law that prohibits frivolous defamation suits, a claim rejected by Judge Kaplan.
Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in 2019 over statements he made denying the allegations at the time. That case was halted pending further litigation over how to handle the case because Trump was president when he made the statements at issue in the lawsuit.
Who will testify at the trial?
The columnist’s lawyers have indicated that Carroll will likely take the stand to tell the jury her story.
However, Trump is unlikely to appear in a Manhattan federal courtroom, his lawyers said, unless he is called to testify in Carroll’s case or chooses to testify in his own defense.
Trump’s lawyer told the court that Trump wanted to attend the trial, but claimed it would be a burden on the city and court staff to accommodate him given the security protection he receives.
Judge Kaplan has not decided whether he will give jury instructions on Trump’s absence from the defense table.
Jurors are expected to see at least parts of Trump’s video statement taken last October for this case. Excerpts from the statement were previously disclosed in court documents before the trial.
Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta Kaplan, a civil attorney who has represented women in high-profile sexual assault litigation such as the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, indicated that her team can pursue Carroll’s case without Trump showing up. (Carroll’s attorney and the judge are not related.)
Two old friends of Carroll, who confirmed that she confided in them shortly after the alleged incident more than two decades ago, can testify to corroborate Carroll’s story, Judge Kaplan ruled over objections from Trump’s legal team.
Carroll said that when she confided in journalist Lisa Birnbach, her friend told her that she had been raped and that she should report the incident to police at that time.
When he told former local TV host Carol Martin a day later, Martin warned Carroll that he was no match for Trump’s army of lawyers and said it was best to keep it to herself, which Carroll ultimately did. until 2019, she says.
Two other women who allege that Trump physically forced themselves on them can also testify to his allegations, the judge ruled.
Jessica Leeds alleged that Trump, sitting next to her on a plane, groped her on a flight from Texas to New York in 1979. Leeds, who first ran during the 2016 presidential election, said in a statement in this case. that Trump acknowledged remembering her from the plane when she saw him at an event sometime after the alleged incident.
People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoffsimilarly claims that Trump groped her and tried to forcefully kiss her in 2005 when Stoynoff was in Mar-a-Lago to interview Trump and Melania Trump, who was then pregnant, on their first wedding anniversary.
Trump denies that both incidents occurred.
The photo of Ivana Trump and other evidence
Carroll’s lawyers are expected to show jurors a black-and-white photo of Trump interacting with various people, including his then-wife Ivana, Carroll and her then-husband.
A transcript of his October 2022 deposition revealed that Trump mistook Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples when he reviewed the photo during the deposition.
“I don’t know who, it’s Marla,” Trump said when shown the photo. “That’s Marla, yes. She, that’s my wife,” he said when asked to clarify.
Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, chimed in and said “no, this is Carroll,” according to the transcript.
Carroll’s lawyers said the photo proves that Trump did in fact know Carroll and that she could be his “type.”
Trump’s comments on the 2016 election campaign denying the Leeds and Stoynoff allegations can also be admitted into evidence, the judge ruled.
As in the Carroll case, Trump has claimed that the allegations are false and implausible in part because the women are not attractive or his ‘type’.
The recording of “Access Hollywood”
Jurors can also listen to the controversial “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump can be heard telling the show’s host, Billy Bush, how he would use his stardom to aggressively approach women.
Trump has attributed his graphic language in the tape, which first appeared during his 2016 presidential election campaign, as “locker room talk” that was not actually true.
Judge Kaplan ruled that a jury could reasonably find that Trump admitted on the “Access Hollywood” tape that he “has, in fact, had contact with the genitalia of women in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so,” and the jury can look to the testimony of Leeds and Stoynoff in support of that argument.
