Fresh off his runaway win in the nation’s first 2024 presidential nominating contest, the next phase of former President Trump’s courtroom chronicles will begin Tuesday as a jury convenes to determine how much Trump must pay for defaming a longtime advice columnist.
Last year, a jury concluded Trump sexually abused the columnist, E. Jean Carroll, in the mid-1990s at a New York City department store and later defamed her, awarding Carroll $5 million. Trump vehemently denies her claims.
Now, Carroll is taking Trump to civil trial again. This time, she seeks at least $10 million in damages for Trump’s denials when the former “Elle” columnist first came forward publicly with her claims in 2019.
Trump has already been found liable in the case, so the trial, expected to last upwards of one week, will be held simply to determine how much Trump must pay.
It marks the latest chapter of Trump’s increasingly intertwined legal and campaign calendars as the primaries get underway.
In the week leading up to the Iowa caucuses — the first 2024 presidential nominating contest in the nation — Trump spent two days in front of judges, turning his courtroom appearances into campaign stops as he portrays the civil lawsuits and criminal charges filed against him as politically motivated efforts to keep him from winning the White House.
At one stop in Washington, D.C., he joined his lawyers as they attempted to convince an appeals court panel that Trump has criminal immunity for official acts during his presidency, and on Thursday, Trump showed up to closing arguments in his civil fraud trial in New York where he briefly addressed the court by lashing out at the attorney general who is prosecuting that case.
Republican voters in Iowa then delivered Trump a resounding win, with the former president carrying roughly half the vote, further cementing his status as the front-runner for the nomination this summer.
Before heading to New Hampshire later on Tuesday, Trump is expected to be back in New York for Carroll’s defamation trial. He has suggested he will testify, telling reporters last week: “Yeah, I’m going to go to it, and I’m going to explain I don’t know who the hell she is.”
Trump is on the witness list, and he has shown frustration with the case, lashing out at Carroll and the judge dozens of times on Truth Social in recent days.
But it remains to be seen whether he will follow through on his renewed resolve to address the jury.
Although Carroll’s cases have led to a regular stream of salacious and negative headlines, the former president’s lawyers have viewed her lawsuits as a less serious legal threat than the former president’s four criminal indictments and other legal headwinds.
And if he does take the stand, Trump would be barred from telling jurors that the sexual assault did not occur and making many of the other claims he has espoused in public about the case. After Trump suggested he would attend the trial, Carroll’s lawyers questioned what topics the former president could still permissibly testify about.
“[T]here are any number of reasons why Mr. Trump might perceive a personal or political benefit from intentionally turning this trial into a circus,” Carroll’s lawyers warned the judge.
It led to last-minute quarreling between the parties over the weekend, with Trump’s lawyers insisting “he can still offer considerable testimony.” But they also said Trump’s ability to defend himself at trial “is already severely limited.”
Set to unfold in a federal courtroom in lower Manhattan, the trial this week is a narrow one.
Carroll is suing Trump for defamation over statements he made in June 2019 immediately after Carroll’s story went public, when New York magazine published an excerpt from her forthcoming book. In a written statement given to reporters and comments made on the South Lawn, Trump attacked Carroll’s credibility and insisted she made up the story to sell her book.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, an appointee of former President Clinton, already found Trump automatically liable in the case as a result of the verdict last year. Although jurors did not find enough evidence that Trump committed rape, they did find that Trump sexually abused Carroll. Trump is appealing.
This week’s trial is only being held to weigh Carroll’s request for $10 million in compensatory damages in addition to punitive damages.
Jurors will be told to accept as fact that Trump sexually abused Carroll, and Kaplan barred the former president from introducing evidence that undermines that underlying claim.
Otherwise, much of the trial is poised to look like the previous one.
The judge is the same. He will allow Carroll’s lawyers to play the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that surfaced ahead of the 2016 presidential election, in which Trump is heard saying lewd comments about grabbing women to television host Billy Bush.
Trump is again prohibited from telling jurors about funding a nonprofit backed by a Democratic megadonor provided toward Carroll’s legal expenses.
“Given Ms. Carroll’s frank acknowledgment of her personal and political distaste for Mr. Trump, he has an ample basis for challenging her credibility without getting into a collateral and time consuming dispute about what, if anything, she remembered during her deposition concerning any contribution by a non-profit organization toward the expense of the litigation, let alone the political views of whoever funded that organization. The prejudice inherent in such an exercise would outweigh substantially any probative value,” Kaplan ruled.
Also, many of the potential witnesses are the same. Carroll may again call to the stand two women who allege Trump groped them and testified. Trump denies their accusations.
Carroll is also again expected to call a marketing expert to quantify the damages caused by Trump’s statements. The expert testified in Carroll’s first trial and former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s recent defamation trial last month.
Finally, Trump is again on his witness list. But in the earlier Carroll trial, Trump’s lawyers ultimately did not present a defense case, so the jury never heard from Trump.
The question remains, will this time be any different?