(Headline USA) Donald Trump began testifying Thursday in a New York defamation trial to determine how much he might owe the advice columnist E. Jean Carroll for disparaging her as a liar after she publicly accused him of a decades-old rape in 2019.
“I just wanted to defend myself,” he said in testimony that lasted less than three minutes.
Carroll, who is seeking over $10 million in damages, was in the courtroom as Trump was sworn in as a witness in Manhattan federal court.
Carroll claims Trump ruined her reputation after she accused him for the first time publicly in a memoir of sexually abusing her in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a Manhattan luxury department store.
However, her prior testimony revealed that her account, which closely resembled the plot of an episode in a television crime drama, included considerable holes.
Carroll’s memory was foggy on the details of the 28-year-old encounter, which she chose not to disclose until Trump became the Republican president and a figure universally reviled by the leftist social circles in which she mingled.
Skeptics also have pointed to her eccentric behavior, including her past remarks that seemed to trivialize rape and to celebrate sex as an act of liberation and empowerment.
pic.twitter.com/95wZInB7EM
This woman is deranged
Who paints your rocks to mimic water !
An name your dog Tits and cat Vagina I think she was having sexual fantasies about Trump
An dreamt the whole thing
😂😂😂
Crazy !— KeL ☀️ 🙏🏽✌🏽 (@Lisa07985952257) January 18, 2024
Trump, 77, has vehemently denied the accusations for the last five years and continues to assail Carroll, 80, on the campaign trail as he pursued the presidency as the Republican frontrunner.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, has instructed jurors that they must accept the findings of another New York jury that awarded Carroll $5 million.
Kaplan said last year’s verdict means the current jury only needs to decide how much more money, if any, Trump owes Carroll for his 2019 statements.
The previous jury concluded that Trump “sexually abused” Carroll at the Bergdorf Goodman store and defamed her in October 2022 statements, although it stopped short of saying that Trump raped Carroll, which is statutorily defined differently. Trump did not attend that trial.
The New York legislature retroactively changed its laws during Trump’s presidency to open a window for cases that had passed the statute of limitations under the so-called Adult Survivors Act, which some suspect was intended specifically to ensnare Trump. Carroll, whose lawsuit was bankrolled by leftist LinkedIn billionaire Reid Hoffman, was an active lobbyist for the law’s passage.
The trial that began last week and already featured testimony by Carroll focuses only on statements Trump made in June 2019 while he was president. Those claims had been delayed for four years by appeals.
Trump attorney Alina Habba told the Manhattan federal court judge that Trump was her last witness after a lunch break. She said she only planned to ask him three questions to elicit that he was addressing questions in 2019 in response to Carroll’s claims in a memoir that he raped her, and that and that he did not intend his statements to harm Carroll.
“I want to know everything he’s going to say,” Kaplan told Habba, who said Trump would also say that he stood by a deposition in October 2022.
Soon after the announcement by Habba out of the presence of the jury, Trump could be heard saying aloud: “I never met the woman. I don’t know who the woman is. I wasn’t at the trial.”
That comment prompted Kaplan to respond: “I’m sorry Mr. Trump. You’re interrupting these proceedings. … That is not permitted.”
Kaplan reminded lawyers of the limits he has placed on Trump’s testimony, including that he not be permitted to testify in a way that conflicts with or argues against a $5 million jury verdict last year. He also is not allowed to say that Carroll made up her sexual assault claims or that she was motivated by her book deal or for political reasons.
Trump’s testimony was announced after Carroll’s lawyers finished the presentation of their case by showing jurors video clips of the Republican front-runner in this year’s presidential race saying at a Jan. 17 campaign rally that Carroll’s claims were a “made-up, fabricated story” and a 2022 deposition deriding her as “a liar and a very sick person.”
Carroll’s attorneys showed the video clips, including portions of Trump’s October 2022 deposition when he denied knowing who Carroll was. One snippet shown to jurors was when Trump during his deposition misidentified Carroll as his ex-wife, Marla Maples.
Trump’s attorneys have tried to show the jury through their cross-examination of witnesses that Carroll has gained a measure of fame and financial rewards through taking on Trump that outweigh the death threats and other venom slung at her through social media.
Habba has told the judge that he might testify because, even with the judge’s restrictions, “he can still offer considerable testimony in his defense.”
Among other things, he can testify about his state of mind when he made the statements that got him sued and about how his comments came as Carroll was doing media interviews and journalists were asking him about her, Habba wrote.
She also suggested he could “show his lack of ill will or spite” by talking about how he “corrected” his initial denial of having ever met Carroll.
The trial had been suspended since early Monday because of a juror’s illness. When it resumed Thursday, the judge said two jurors were being “socially distanced” from the others in the jury box.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
