The journalist E. Jean Carroll’s civil case against former president Donald Trump, on claims that he raped her in 1996 and then defamed her after she wrote about in 2019, seemed to fly under the radar for a long time. That is apt to change this week. By this afternoon, a jury of six men and three women will be deliberating.
As Rich and I have discussed on our last two podcasts (here and here), there are two principal reasons why the case hasn’t gotten much attention.
First, Trump is facing criminal jeopardy. That’s not just Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s dubious 34-count indictment for falsification of business records. There is the Justice Department–appointed special counsel’s much more serious probes of classified-document retention (and misleading the grand jury) and obstruction of Congress’s January 6 ratification of President Biden’s Electoral College victory. Plus, there’s the Atlanta state prosecutor’s investigation of tampering with Georgia’s 2020 presidential election. The possibility of criminal convictions, along with the New York attorney general’s civil-fraud complaint that could put the Trump organization out of business in New York, pushed Carroll’s case to the bottom of the pile.
Second, Carroll made a poor impression when she did the media rounds after making her allegations against Trump, especially in an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. I don’t really think she did as badly as the post mortem coverage suggested; but it wasn’t good. It helped Trump dismiss her as a flake.
In any event, whatever explains the lack of attention, that is about to change. It’s obvious that Trump knows he could lose this case. He did not attend the trial because he does not want to appear invested in the outcome, and he is laying the groundwork to claim that any verdict against him was rigged. As I noted in a post earlier this evening, he let pass a Sunday evening deadline to seek to take the stand and testify in his defense.
Here at NR, we’ve been covering the trial from the outset. If you’d like to get caught up, here you go:
Trump’s Civil Rape Trial Headed for Summations Monday … ‘Probably’
So Now Trump Is Coming to the Rape Trial?
Trump Will Present No Defense in Civil Trial of Carroll’s Rape/Defamation Claims
At Trump Rape/Defamation Trial, Witness Backs Up E. Jean Carroll’s Account
Will Evidence of Trump’s Propensities Fill the Forensic Void in Carroll’s Rape Allegation?
Jean Carroll Tells Her Story in Trump’s Rape/Defamation Trial