Donald Trump appeared in court Friday for arguments in the appeal of the E. Jean Carroll trial that found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
Donald Trump actually showed up this time.
The 2024 Republican presidential nominee appeared in a Manhattan federal appeals court on Friday to watch the oral arguments in the appeal of a jury verdict finding him liable for sexual abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.
Much of the arguments — on the 17th floor of a Manhattan federal courthouse — focused on whether sexual-assault testimony from one witness in the trial should have been tossed because the incident she alleges took place on an airplane.
John Sauer, Trump’s lawyer in the Friday arguments, said the jury should have never heard evidence from Jessica Leeds, who testified that Trump groped her on a plane in the 1970s.
Leeds testified that when Trump ran into her a couple of years later, he recalled her as “that cunt from the airplane.”
Leeds’ allegations weren’t part of Carroll’s accusations, but the trial judge allowed her testimony because they demonstrated what Carroll’s lawyers argued was a pattern of behavior by Trump.
But Sauer said the testimony should have been “inadmissible” because the alleged events were under “territorial or maritime jurisdiction” and different rules of evidence applied.
The three judges on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals panel hearing the case seemed largely skeptical of the arguments.
US Circuit Judge Denny Chin appeared doubtful it would make sense to “order a new trial” based on the arguments.
“It’s very hard to overturn a jury verdict for evidentiary grounds”, he said.
Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said there was no “special aircraft jurisdiction” that would have led to the exclusion of Leeds’s testimony.
“It was a crime to grope someone on a plane”, she said. “It is a crime to grope someone on a plane.”
Trump — who did not testify or even show up to the trial for the case — said in a press conference at Trump Tower later Friday morning that Leeds “would not have been the chosen one” if she were to grope a woman on a plane.
“It couldn’t have happened, it didn’t happen, and she would not have been the chosen one”, he said. “She would not have been the chosen one”, he repeated.
“I assume she’ll sue me now for defamation”, he added, after continuing to deny he sexually assaulted Leeds.Trump didn’t show up to the trial
Trump skipped the trial for the case, which took place in the spring of 2023. The jury found him liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.
After suffering the court loss, Trump did attend nearly all of a second trial, in January of this year, which focused on additional defamation damages.
