Jury selection to begin in E Jean Carroll defamation trial against Trump
Jury selection is set to start Tuesday morning in E Jean Carroll’s Manhattan federal court defamation trial against Donald Trump.
A previous trial jury in another, related lawsuit by the New York writer determined that the former US president sexually abused her.
Carroll said that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room nearly 30 years ago. She first publicly came forward five years ago with an excerpt from her then forthcoming book, What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, in New York magazine.
Trump, at the time still president, immediately went on the attack, claiming: “I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book – that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section.” She filed suit against him in 2019, saying Trump’s denials harmed her reputation.
At that time, Carroll couldn’t pursue legal action against Trump for the claimed sexual assault, as it had fallen outside New York’s civil statute of limitations. The advent of New York state’s Adult Survivors Act in 2022 – which provided a one-year window allowing adult survivors of sexual misconduct to sue their accused abusers – enabled her to sue Trump again, for the underlying assault claim.
That lawsuit also included defamation claims for Trump’s comments about her after he left the White House. This second lawsuit went on trial in April 2023 and jurors awarded her $5m, finding Trump liable of sexual abuse and defamation for the post-presidency comments.
This week’s trial will only weigh whether Trump’s denials while he was president constituted defamation which, in practical terms, means it will effectively boil down to damages. The judge overseeing this case, Lewis Kaplan, will not allow Trump’s team to re-litigate Carroll’s claims.
“Consequently, the fact that Mr Trump sexually abused – indeed, raped – Ms Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case,” Kaplan also said.
“Mr Trump is precluded from offering any testimony, evidence, or argument suggesting or implying that he did not sexually assault Ms Carroll, that she fabricated her account of the assault, or that she had any motive to do so.”
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It’s unclear whether Trump will testify, as his stated plans to appear at court have changed at the last minute in other proceedings.