The trial is over, but the political battle Trump faces is not.
With the obvious exception of the celebrity of the defendant, the civil trial that Donald Trump faced in New York unfolded as any other such trial might. There was evidence, there were depositions. Each side offered an opening statement. The attorney for the plaintiff, writer E. Jean Carroll, called witnesses and Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, cross-examined them.
Tacopina did decide against presenting his own witnesses, a not-unheard-of tactic aimed in part at suggesting to the jury that the case against the defendant was weak enough to require no additional response. In retrospect, that may have been an error; on Tuesday afternoon, the jury returned a verdict finding Trump liable in defaming Carroll in response to her allegation that he’d assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.
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The jury also determined that sufficient evidence existed to determine that the assault had actually occurred. Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages.
The trial is over, but the political battle Trump faces is not. For months, he has worked to squeeze the Carroll lawsuit into the large box holding all of his other legal threats, casting it as yet another effort by the left or the elites or the whoevers to block his political ascent and, by doing so, to render his supporters themselves inert.
As has been the case since he first cobbled together his “witch hunt” defense in response to reports about Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump offered a steady stream of misinformation to his social media followers and supporters framing the lawsuit as biased, unfair and un-American. As the trial reached its conclusion, Trump began making noises about taking the stand, rebutting Carroll’s claims from within the courtroom.
