Donald Trump repeatedly shook his head in disgust as a New York judge told potential jurors in his defamation trial that he sexually assaulted columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The former president, 77, was in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday just hours after his landslide victory in the Iowa Republican caucus.
Carroll’s lawyers want Trump to pay $10million in damages for calling her a liar after she claimed he raped her in a dressing room in a luxury department store in 1996.
A previous civil jury has already found him liable for sexually abusing her at Bergdorf’s, a luxury department store in Manhattan, in 1996 after they had a chance meeting outside. Trump is appealing.
In court on Tuesday Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba got into a dramatic back-and-forth with Judge Lewis Kaplan for refusing to delay the trial and potential jurors were asked a series of questions about their politics.
The judge asked the pool of potential jurors whether anyone felt that ‘Mr Trump is being treated unfairly by the court system in the United States.’
Three jurors stood up to say they agreed with the statement.
Trump himself also raised his hand.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll attend jury selection in their second civil trial in New York
Former U.S. President Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll and their lawyers stand for the jury as they attend jury selection
In this courtroom sketch, prospective jurors file into the courtroom as Donald Trump, third left, stands surrounded by his defense team. Alina Habba, fourth left, Trump’s lead defense attorney, stands beside him. E. Jean Carroll, background second from right, stands with her attorney Roberta Kaplan, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in New York
In an opening statement, Carroll’s lawyer Shawn Crowley said that while he was president, Trump ‘used the world’s biggest microphone to attack Miss Carroll, humiliate her and to destroy her reputation.’
Among the comments Trump made was that Carroll was ‘not my type’, which Crowley told the jury was him saying she was ‘too ugly to sexually assault.’
Crowley said: ‘He used the most famous platform on Earth to lie about what he’d done and to falsely accuse her of inventing a terrible lie.
‘He went after her appearance to punish her and humiliate her and to make sure nobody believed her.’
The lawyer went on: ‘He said these things from the White House, a place where presidents have signed laws, declared wars, decided the fate of a nation, so is it any wonder when Donald Trump spoke from the White House, people across the country listened and many, many believed what he said. Of course not’.
E. Jean Carroll arrives in court in Manhattan for the $10million defamation fraud trial against Donald Trump
Trump entered the court in his motorcade through the underground garage
Crowley said that it was a ‘proven fact’ that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in 1996 at Bergdorf’s department store because a jury in a related case found so last May.
But when Carroll first went public with her claims in June 2019 in New York magazine, Trump didn’t just deny it, he went much further.
‘Every single one of the statements Donald Trump made in response to Miss Carroll’s allegations was an outright lie,’ Crowley said.
Immediately after Trump’s social media posts his followers began posting ‘horrible things’ online about her, saying she should be raped and that she should die, Carroll’s lawyer told the court..
Carroll lost her job with Elle magazine as an advice columnist, a job she had held for decades.
She ‘immediately regretted she dared to take on the most powerful man on the planet’ and now lives in fear with a loaded gun by her bed and a pitbull roaming outside her house, the court was told.
In this courtroom sketch, former President Donald Trump, right, turns to look at an anonymous prospective juror, standing left, during questions posed by Judge Lewis Kaplan in the jury selection process, in Federal Court, in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024
Appealing to the jury, Crowley urged them to award Carroll ‘substantial’ damages in order to ‘make him (Trump) stop’
She said: ‘Because he has not stopped…in fact his attacks on Miss Carroll still continue to today, literally today’, referring to posts on Truth Social during the trial that she was lying.
Crowley said: ‘You’ll hear that as Donald Trump faces trial over how much money it will get him to stop defaming Miss Carroll, he keeps doing it. He sat in this courthouse this morning and while he was sitting her he posted more defamatory statements, more lies, by our last count 22 posts just today.
‘Think about that when you consider how much money it will take to get him to stop’.
In this courtroom sketch, E. Jean Carroll, right, turns around towards Donald Trump, seated, left, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in New York
In her opening statement for Trump, his lawyer Alina Habba said that the former president’s comments were just him ‘defending himself’
Rather than losing her reputation, Carroll has ‘gained more fame, more notoriety than she could have ever dreamed of’.
‘She doesn’t want to fix her reputation, she likes her new brand’, Habba said, noting that Carroll was now friends with Trump-hating comedian Kathy Griffin and his niece Mary Trump, who wrote an unflattering book about her uncle.
Habba said that Carroll was looking for a ‘windfall’ for the ‘mean tweets’ posted by people who were trolls and nothing to do with Trump.
The jury needed to ‘see through this charade and tell her, it is enough,’
Former U.S. President Donald Trump and his lawyers stand for the jury as they attend jury selection in the civil trial
Habba said any negative backlash experienced by Carroll was just a ‘byproduct of a digital age and social media.’
She said: ‘When you put yourself out in the world, you will receive backlash, it’s a normal thing that happens. She’s claiming it’s all because of his two statements.
‘Regardless of a few mean tweets, Miss Carroll is now more famous than she’s been in her life and loved and respected by many, which is her goal.’
Earlier, as the dramatic hearing began, Trump stood as the potential jurors entered the court and looked on as they took their seats.
Carroll stared at the floor, looking briefly towards the jurors.
Judge Kaplan told the jurors: ‘You’ve been summoned for possible service on a jury in a civil case.
‘This case is between a writer and advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll, and former President Donald J. Trump’.
ormer US President and Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump attends a watch party during the 2024 Iowa Republican presidential caucuses in Des Moines, Iowa, on January 15, 2024
Former President Donald Trump’s motorcade leaves Manhattan federal court in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024
The judge told the prospective jurors it was ‘very important you be candid’ when answering questions to ensure impartiality.
He said that the jurors would be anonymous and only referred to them by the number they were given by the court.
Those who were chosen to be on the jury would be picked up from collection points and brought into the underground garage of the courthouse.
Jurors should not reveal their real name even to other jurors and shouldn’t tell their families they were serving on this case.
The reason was to ‘protect all of you from any unwanted attention, harassment and invasions of your privacy’, the judge said.
Judge Kaplan gave the jury a summary of the case and said that Carroll sued Trump over statements he made in June 2019 after she accused him of sexually assaulting her in the mid 1990s.
At this Trump shook his head in disagreement.
Judge Kaplan said: ‘In the statements that were published by Mr Trump in 2019 Mr Trump denied Miss Carrol’s accusation, stated he never met her and didn’t know who she was, and she made up her story about Mr Trump to help her sell a new book.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, a United States district judge serving on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
‘For reasons that I’ll explain later, this trial is limited to the issue of the money damages, if any, that Miss Carroll should receive for those publications.
‘The reason is because the court determined in a previous decision that Mr Trump is liable for defamation on those two occasions.
‘It has been determined that Mr Trump did sexually assault Miss Carroll, that he knew when he made statements about Miss Carroll that the statements were false and he made them with reckless disregard as to whether they were true or false’.
At this Trump shook his head again in disagreement.
Judge Kaplan said that Carroll alleges she suffered ‘reputational and professional harm.’
Judge Kaplan asked potential jurors if, having heard the summary of the case, they were unable to be impartial. Three jurors raised their hands and were excused.
Journalist E. Jean Carroll arrives at Federal court for her second Civil Defamation Trial against former president Donald J. Trump in New York, New York, USA, 16 January 2024
Among the potential jurors was a woman who did PR work for Trump’s daughter Ivanka in 2017 and 2018, when she was an advisor.
When asked if any jurors had worked for Trump, one man said that he had been a US Navy officer, apparently referring to when he was President.
Three potential jurors put their hands up when asked if they had donated to Trump’s political campaign or PAC.
Several said that they had donated to campaigns for Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama.
One male juror confirmed that he had followed Trump on social media and had attended a campaign rally for him.
That same man agreed when asked if he thought the ‘2020 election was stolen’, along with a female juror.
Nobody raised their hand when they were asked if they were members of extremist groups including the QAnon movement, Antifa, the Communist Party of the United States and the Ku Klux Klan.
No prospective jurors said they were a supporter of or belonged to the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers or the Boogaloo Boys, groups which were involved in the storming of the US Capitol on January 6th 2021, which was encouraged by Trump.
E Jean Carroll arrives for her defamation trial against Former President Donald Trump at New York Federal Court on January 16, 2024 in New York City
Nobody put their hand up when asked if they used Truth Social, Trump’s social media platform.
Surveying the room, Judge Kaplan said that ‘a lot of hands’ went up when he asked the jury pool if they had heard about Trump’s four criminal cases.
One juror said that this would make it hard for them to be fair during the trial and they were excused.
Several jurors stood up when asked to indicate if they had watched The Apprentice, the reality TV show he used to host, but none said it would interfere with their ability to be impartial.
Among the other questions were whether jurors had strong feelings about the MeToo movement.