Former President Donald Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, said today that E. Jean Carroll achieved “fame, if not fortune,” by accusing him of raping her.
Last year, a jury found Trump responsible for sexually assaulting Carroll in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She now faces cross-examination as part of a trial to determine what damages Trump owes her for defamatory comments in which he called her a “liar” and called the allegations a “scam” and “fraud.”
On the second day of cross-examination, Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, attempted to demonstrate that Carroll had not suffered as a result of the former president’s comments, asking him: “So your reputation in many ways is better today, isn’t it, Ms. Carroll?” ?’
Carroll replied: ‘No, my status was downgraded. “I am participating in this trial to regain my own reputation and status.”
E Jean Carroll faces a second day of cross-examination in a trial to determine what damages Trump owes her
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, sought to show that her reputation and income were not harmed by the former president’s comments.
E. Jean Carroll enters Manhattan Federal Court in the second civil trial after she accused former US President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago
Trump, who attended the first two days of the trial, was not in court because he headed to Florida to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.
He became furious earlier this week after the judge refused to delay the trial for the funeral.
On Sunday, Trump said at a rally: “My wife’s mother, who was incredible and a great beauty inside and out, an incredible woman, just died.”
And my wife was pretty devastated by that. I have a trial going on, a totally bogus trial,” she added. “And we asked the judge if I could take a day off to attend the funeral of my mother-in-law, who was also very close to me.”
‘And he said, ‘No.’ These are animals. You can see it.’
He had been disruptive on the days he attended, and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan reprimanded him after a Carroll attorney complained that he complained about the case loud enough for jurors to hear.
The judge told the Republican presidential front-runner that he might have to consider throwing him out of the trial if he continued to make comments loud enough for jurors to hear.
Carroll’s attorney claimed he made comments including “it’s a witch hunt” and “it really is a scam.”
On Thursday, Trump attorney Alina Habba confronted Carroll with a series of cruel tweets that Trump supporters sent her after reading excerpts from her memoir in a June 2019 magazine article in which she revealed her claims of that Trump raped her.
Habba was trying to show jurors that the social media posts Carroll attributed to Trump statements were being sent before his statements were published.
“They follow Donald Trump. They want to emulate him,” Habba said. “They are defending the man they admire.”
At one point, the judge shut down the line of questioning, saying it was “just repetitive.”
Trump did not attend Thursday’s trial because he was in Florida for his mother-in-law’s funeral.
Trump had an argument with the judge in the case after they refused to delay the trial because of the funeral
The trial that began this week concerns only what a jury believes Trump owes Carroll, if anything, for statements he made as president in June 2019 after excerpts from Carroll’s memoirs were published in a magazine. that described his claims against Trump.
Carroll has testified that her life changed dramatically after Trump called her a liar, claimed he never met her and claimed she made her accusations against him to promote her book and hurt him politically.
He said he lives in fear, sleeps with a loaded gun next to him and wishes he could increase his security, but he doesn’t have enough money.
Last May, a jury in the same courtroom awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after concluding that Trump sexually abused her at a Bergdorf Goodman store across from Trump Tower in the spring of 1996 and then defamed her with statements in October 2022.
In that verdict, jurors rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped and found Trump responsible for a lesser degree of sexual abuse.
The judge said the jury’s decision was based on “the narrow and technical meaning” of rape in New York criminal law and that, in his analysis, the verdict did not mean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped ‘ she as many people commonly understand the word “rape.”
Trump did not attend that trial and recently said during the election campaign that his lawyer advised him to stay away.
Trump has appeared animated during his two days in the courtroom this week, shaking his head at testimony he disagreed with, passing notes to his lawyers and speaking to them while the jury was in the room.
E. Jean Carroll entering Manhattan Federal Court for the second day of cross-examination in the trial
Judge Lewis Kaplan was forced to scold Trump at one point the day before and threatened to throw him out of the courtroom.
During his confrontation with the judge on Wednesday, Trump responded to the threat to throw him out of the courtroom with: “I would love to.”
That led the judge to say, ‘I know you would. Apparently you can’t control yourself under these circumstances.
After leaving the courthouse on Wednesday, Trump told reporters that Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, was “a nasty judge” and a “Trump-hating guy” who was “obviously not impartial.”
Sometime next week, the jury will be asked to determine damages. Carroll is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and substantially more in punitive damages.
Habba said in an opening statement that Carroll should not receive more money, particularly because the death threats and comments he receives on social media are not unusual for public figures with a strong social media presence.
“Regardless of some nasty tweets, Ms. Carroll is now more famous than ever in her life and loved and respected by many, which was her goal,” Habba told the jury.