The trail steps off between Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll, the New York magazine writer who is suing Mr. Trump for rape and defamation in federal court on April 24…
(Please read the THIRD paragraph in the linked summary below!…)
In any other situation, it would be impossible to explain how we had spent so little time looking at the imminent rape trial of a former president of the United States. Here, however, Donald Trump is caught in such a maelstrom, much of it of his own making, that the civil lawsuit accusing him of sexual assault — one of two closely related suits brought by former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll — has largely flown under the radar.
That is about to change. The case is going to trial in federal court just ten days from now, on Monday, April 24.
This week, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, denied a motion by Trump’s lawyers to delay the trial for a month and further ordered an anonymous jury. Kaplan is a superb, no-nonsense judge, appointed to the bench by President Clinton in 1994.
He concluded that there was no point postponing the trial, notwithstanding the former president’s recent indictment in Manhattan, because publicity is a constant with Trump (who gives as good as he gets). The best assurance of a fair trial is for the court to conduct a searching inquiry of prospective jurors’ biases, rather than to delay in hopes of a quieter time that may never come. Anonymous juries, moreover, have become a staple of trials involving infamous events and lightning-rod figures; anonymity shields jurors from media and partisan harassment, thus making it more likely that people will be willing to serve as jurors in tough cases….
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In 2019, while Trump was president, Carroll published a memoir in which she accused him of raping her in 1996, in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, the upscale Fifth Avenue department store in Manhattan. Trump vigorously denied the accusation, claiming he had “never met this person in my life,” calling her a “whack job” liar who was just trying to sell a book, and — of course, Trump being Trump — adding “she’s not my type.” Regardless of whether a sexual assault happened, Trump’s claim not to have met Carroll was untrue: There is a decades-old photo showing the two of them (along with others, including Trump’s late first wife, Ivana) in conversation at a party. As for not being his type, when shown the photo at a deposition, Trump mistook Carroll for his second wife, Marla Maples.
Note….
We’ll see how the Christian Religious Right people deal with their ‘main man’ accused of rape…..
Judge Rejects Trump’s Attempt to Delay Rape Trial
“A federal judge on Monday denied a bid by Donald Trump to delay a civil trial involving a rape allegation by author E. Jean Carroll against the former president, rejecting a contention that a ‘cooling off’ period is needed after Trump’s arraignment this month in a criminal case related to hush money payments to an adult-film star,” the Washington Post reports.
“In an order, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the trial will begin in Manhattan on April 25 as planned.”
Writer Testifies Under Oath that Trump Raped Her
“The writer E. Jean Carroll took the witness stand Wednesday to tell a Manhattan jury her story of how former President Donald Trump raped her one evening nearly 30 years ago in a Manhattan department store dressing room,” the New York Times reports.
Said Carroll: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try and get my life back.”