By Timothy L. O’Brien / Bloomberg Opinion
A New York jury of six men and three women on Tuesday unanimously found former president Donald Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming a writer, E. Jean Carroll, and awarded her $5 million for the suffering and reputational damage she’s endured.
Millions of dollars may not be a balm for Carroll, who also had to soldier through the court system and wrestle with Trump’s lawyers during a deposition to get to this verdict. But a jury heard the facts and concluded — without being swayed by notoriety or hype — that a woman was brutalized and that her attacker should be held responsible for his conduct.
It’s a straightforward, just outcome that shouldn’t be overlooked amid the noise and attention that inevitably enveloped Carroll’s case.
The verdict also demonstrates how the courts have evolved (though still not enough) to ensure that women can find their voices and justice for sex crimes. Civil lawsuits over sexual assault claims in New York usually have a three-year statute of limitations. Carroll’s claims against Trump date back to the mid-1990s. But a New York law passed last year temporarily extended the timeline for filing sex crime charges, allowing Carroll, who proved to be invariably brave, to go to court.
Sex crime victims, consumed by shame, trauma and fear, often cannot or will not come forward in the limited window some statutes afford them. Having more time to summon their courage — as Carroll did — is a reminder that time should be on victims’ sides in these cases. The courts have work to do to ensure that women across the country and in every locality are afforded respect, compassion and the proper opportunity to hold their abusers accountable.
For Trump, who has spent decades weaponizing the courts to target business competitors, public officials, critics and other opponents — real or perceived — the verdict is a humbling moment. It’s unlikely to conjure much shame in the former president, however, because narcissists and others with broken psyches tend not to feel or admit to shame. But he lost the case, and “loser” isn’t a word Trump wants to have in his lexicon.
For Trump’s lawyers, the Carroll case is a reminder of what an absolute disaster Trump is under oath, whether in a courtroom or in a deposition. Clients who habitually lie or exaggerate are land mines; clients prone to showing off or being thin-skinned are also trouble. Trump, a self-mythologizing and unhinged fabulist, manages to embody all those traits in an utterly unreliable and self-destructive package.
Put a skillful attorney in front of Trump in court or during a deposition (I had three when he unsuccessfully sued me for libel in 2006) and the game is over before it begins. Carroll had a top-notch litigator handling her case, Roberta Kaplan, and she made mincemeat of Trump during his deposition.
Kaplan brought up comments Trump made on the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape that surfaced when he was campaigning for president in 2016. “You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful; I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump said on the tape. “Grab ‘em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
“Historically, that’s true with stars,” Trump said when Kaplan inquired.
“It’s true with stars that they can grab women by the pussy?” she asked.
“If you look over the last million years I guess that’s been largely true. Not always. But largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
“And you consider yourself to be a star?”
“I think you can say that, yeah.”
Oh, yeah, Trump can say that. But a jury just ruled that it was wildly unlawful for him to go ahead and act on it.
Kaplan had other shining moments deposing Trump. Trump routinely said that he couldn’t have assaulted Carroll because “she’s not my type.” But when Kaplan showed him a photo of Carroll from the late 1980s, he mistakenly thought, twice, that she was his former wife Marla Maples; who was, presumably, his type. Kaplan got so far under Trump’s skin that he snapped at her at one point, notifying her that she wasn’t his type, either.
While Trump was characteristically combative in his deposition, he ultimately declined to testify in his own defense. No surprise. What lawyer would let the former reality TV star march into a courtroom and self-immolate in front of a live audience?
And because Trump is mired in other investigations and lawsuits, lawyers representing him in those matters must be alarmed by their client and the Carroll case. Those would be the lawyers representing him in Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s voting fraud case in Georgia and in New York State Attorney General Letitia James’s financial fraud case. It would also be the attorneys representing him before special counsel Jack Smith, appointed by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to examine whether Trump is a seditionist and whether he might have misappropriated government records.
Are any of those lawyers brimming with confidence now that Carroll and Kaplan filleted their client? Nah. And what about the electorate?
Many Republican voters, party elders and Trump apologists will undoubtedly write off the Carroll case as another example of Trump being Trump. He’s outrageous, often obscene, but he’s being unfairly targeted because he’s trying to dismantle the administrative state, looking out for affluent white men and putting himself on the side of forgotten, average Americans in the heartland. He can be forgiven.
But the rest of the country should do the right thing. Don’t forgive him.
Timothy L. O’Brien is senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion. A former editor and reporter for the New York Times, he is author of “TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald.”
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