The civil lawsuit from a woman who says Donald Trump raped her decades ago centers on a “brief, brutal attack,” a lawyer for the woman, E. Jean Carroll, told the jury as the trial kicked off in Manhattan federal court Tuesday.
Carroll, a magazine columnist, is suing Trump for allegedly attacking her in a dressing room of luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s and sexually assaulting her — a claim Trump denies, saying the incident “never happened.” She also is suing him for defamation for publicly calling her allegations a “hoax.” She is seeking unspecified money damages.
Describing how Carroll and Trump bantered playfully before he allegedly assaulted her in the dressing room, Carroll’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, told the 9-person jury, “the moment they went inside, everything changed. Suddenly, nothing was funny.”
“Trump was almost twice her size,” Crowley said to the jury. “He held down her arm, pulled down her tights and then he sexually assaulted her.”
Trump, who isn’t required to appear at the proceedings, didn’t attend the first day of the trial. His lawyer, Joe Tacopina, sought to portray Carroll’s claim as a “sick story” while also trying to reassure jurors that they could side with his client even if they dislike him.
“You can hate Donald Trump. It’s OK,” Tacopina told jurors. “But there’s a time and a secret place for that. It’s called a ballot box. Not here, in a court of law.”
“While no one is above the law, no one is also beneath the law,” he continued. “Politicians don’t make this country great, jurors do.”
Carroll, Tacopina argued, was motivated by money and by politics. He questioned her claim that no shoppers or employees were around to witness the incident in the department store, and he emphasized that she couldn’t recall certain details, most notably the precise timing of the alleged attack.
“You learned that E. Jean Carroll can’t tell you the date. She can't tell you the month. She can’t tell you the season. She can’t even tell you the year,” he said.
“Evidence will tell you that E. Jean Carroll can’t do any of those things because the story isn’t true.”
To combat some of those arguments, Crowley emphasized two main points in her opening statements: that Carroll’s account is corroborated by two friends she told contemporaneously and by former Bergdorf Goodman employees who can testify to physical attributes of the store at that time, and that Trump’s alleged assault of Carroll is part of a pattern. More than two dozen women have accused him of sexual misconduct.
Two other women who have accused Trump of sexual assault, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stynoff, are set to testify, and Carroll’s attorneys have received permission from the judge to use the “Access Hollywood” tape — in which Trump boasts on a hot mic that “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” adding, “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything” — as evidence at trial.
Trump’s lawyer, Tacopina, dismissed the significance of the tape, calling it a “lewd conversation from 20 years ago.” The tape was recorded in 2005 and became public in 2016.
“It’s foolish, but it’s locker room talk,” he said. “It’s not an admission.”
Crowley also seized on a statement Trump made in disputing Carroll’s claims that Carroll is “not my type!”
First, Crowley told the jury, “we all know what that means: He was saying she was too ugly to assault.”
Later in her remarks, she also argued that his comment was not only offensive but also a lie. Describing a portion of his videotaped deposition that Carroll’s lawyers intend to show the jury, Crowley showed jurors a black and white photograph of Trump with Carroll.
“When Trump was shown this photograph at his deposition late last year, he looked at it, he pointed to it, unprompted, and he said, ‘It’s Marla! Yeah, it’s Marla, my wife,’” Crowley said, raising her voice.
“He mistook her for Marla Maples, his second wife, a former model, who he admitted was exactly his type.”
The trial is expected to last between one and two weeks, and testimony is set to begin Wednesday. While Trump isn’t expected to attend the trial in coming days, the judge nevertheless offered an instruction that appeared aimed at the absent defendant.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who in court filings took issue with Trump’s recent comments urging his supporters to protest criminal charges against him, advised the lawyers to warn their clients against making remarks that “inspire violence.”
Chief Justice John Roberts has declined an invitation to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to discuss ethics reform on the high court after a report revealed Justice Clarence Thomas' close friendship with a GOP megadonor.
"I extended an invitation to the Chief Justice, or his designate, in an attempt to include the Court in this discussion. But make no mistake: Supreme Court ethics reform must happen, whether the Court participates in the process or not," Judiciary panel chief Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) said in a statement Tuesday.
After a Pro Publica report revealed Thomas accepted lavish gifts and travel for the last two decades from Harlan Crow, a Texas real estate billionaire, Durbin invited Roberts to appear before the committee on May 2, saying his testimony on ethics issues would help provide transparency.
But a Durbin spokesperson told POLITICO Tuesday that Roberts declined to appear for the hearing. Durbin has previously said he plans for the hearing to proceed even if Roberts declined to appear.
“I am surprised that the Chief Justice’s recounting of existing legal standards of ethics suggests current law is adequate and ignores the obvious. The actions of one Justice, including trips on yachts and private jets, were not reported to the public. That same Justice failed to disclose the sale of properties he partly owned to a party with interests before the Supreme Court," Durbin said in the statement.
He added: “It is time for Congress to accept its responsibility to establish an enforceable code of ethics for the Supreme Court, the only agency of our government without it.”
In a letter to Durbin explaining his reasons for declining, Roberts wrote that a chief justice's testimony before Congress "is exceedingly rare, as one might expect in light of separation of powers concerns and the importance of preserving judicial independence."
Durbin, who is also the majority whip, has previously suggested the committee cannot subpoena Roberts because of the absence of Sen. Dianne Feinstein , a longtime Judiciary Committee member who has been away from the Senate for months while being treated for shingles.
The ProPublica report detailed two decades of Thomas' relationship with Crow, which included trips on Crow's private jet and yacht, as well as visits to Crow's lavish properties.
NEW YORK — Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday faulted Democrats for not doing more to cultivate the “next generation of leadership," adding it wasn’t ideal that President Joe Biden was mounting a reelection bid at age 80.
"He has a powerful record on which to run for reelection," Torres said at a Manhattan event hosted by the Association for a Better New York, a pro-business civic group. "But is it ideal that we have an 80-year-old running for president? No. But he's the best hope we have for beating Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis."
Torres has backed Biden's reelection bid.
Biden, who is already the oldest person to be elected president, has had to confront difficult questions about whether he’s mentally fit for four more years of grueling schedules. If elected, Biden would turn 86 at the end of his second term.
Torres, 35, made the remarks as part of a wide-ranging conversation on his first term in Congress alongside colleagues who have gotten significantly older than they were decades prior.
"I'm like an embryo in Congress," the Bronx Democrat joked.
He faulted Democrats for not setting term limits for committee chairs like their Republican counterparts, a setup he said emboldens lawmakers to "feel they have a right to die with their gavel."
“That stifles, I believe, the development of the next generation of leadership," Torres said. “We have to be much more effective at building a bench rather than benching our young talent.”
Fresh off announcing his reelection bid, a jubilant Joe Biden basked in the glow of it all at one of his favorite political safe spaces: a gathering of union workers.
Speaking Tuesday before a packed room of 3,200 at the North America’s Building Trades Unions Conference, the president praised labor for building the middle class and warned against Republican proposals and brinkmanship over the debt ceiling. He reveled in the room’s applause — including a chant for “four more years” — but declined to do the one thing widely anticipated: overtly make the case for that second term.
“I’m here because there’s no better place to talk about the progress we have made together and wouldn’t be made without you,” he said.
As an official White House event, Biden was not there in his capacity as a candidate. Instead, the speech was a campaign launch without an explicit launch of the campaign. He shook every hand on stage. He flashed a big grin more than once. He peppered his speech with booming yells about workers being the backbone of American and bottom-out economics.
But while the crowd erupted into a “Let’s go Joe” chant, Biden left talk of 2024 somewhere behind the dais. It was an implicit recognition that the actual act of running for office comes with certain legal restrictions, an illustration of how tricky it can be to walk the line between president and incumbent presidential candidate.
Though Biden’s speech came just hours after he formally launched his 2024 campaign with a three-minute video in which he asked voters to help him “finish the job,” he made no such ask of the union members before him.
Still, Tuesday’s speech at the Washington Hilton previewed how the president will make his case in the coming months — with official and political events and travel to highlight his administration’s accomplishments before kicking off a barnstorming general election campaign in 2024. He zeroed in on legislative accomplishments, from the Inflation Reduction Act to the bipartisan infrastructure law, while making the case that his core economic plan was working.
“Under my predecessor, Infrastructure Week was a punchline. On my watch, Infrastructure Week has become a decade headline — a decade. That’s where you all come in. We’ve already announced over 25,000 infrastructure projects in 4,500 towns across America and we’re just getting started,” Biden said.
“Union workers will build roads and bridges, lay internet cable, install 500,000 electric vehicle chargers throughout America. Union workers are going to transform America. And union workers are going to finish the job.”
Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a second term in the White House, is battling an approval rating stuck in the low 40s. But White House aides have repeatedly emphasized the unpopularity of his political opponents, particularly Trump. Biden will have 18 months to fundraise before Election Day, which could present a rematch with the opponent he beat in 2020, former President Donald Trump.
But on Tuesday, the president’s mood appeared unfazed by the great obstacles hovering over his announcement. The room full of union workers buzzed with chatter about the timing of his appearance.
“As they say, he’s the most pro-labor, pro-union president in the history of the United States. It’s pretty fitting that he announced this today,” said Dustin Himes, of Bricklayers Local 15, a labor union in Kansas City, Mo. “It’s pretty special.”
