Rape Case Puts Trump in Legal Jeopardy. Politically, He is Prosperous.

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On E. Jean Carrolls first day on the witness stand, her attorney asked what brought her to a federal courtroom in Manhattan.

I’m here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote this, he said it didn’t happen, Ms. Carroll. He lied and ruined my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.

A day later, Mr. Trump, who has denied the attack and called Ms. Carroll, campaigned in New Hampshire, joking to the crowd about his changing nicknames for Hillary Clinton and President Biden. He did not mention the testimony of Ms. Carrolls, or the civil trial taking place 250 miles away. But he cheered a poll released that day, which showed him far and away leading the 2024 Republican primary field.

Because Mr. Trump was indicted last month in a criminal case brought by the Manhattan district attorneys office, his legal woes and his third presidential campaign played out on a split screen. The courtroom dramas unfolded without news cameras, even as the race returned Mr. Trump in the spotlight briefly dimmed after he left the Oval Office.

Mrs. Carrolls painful testimony, a visceral demonstration of Mr. Trumps legal risk, has emphasized the surreal nature of the divide. Mr. Trump is the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. But he was also indicted on 34 felony false record charges, and in the case of Ms. Carrolls faces a nine-person jury that will determine whether he committed rape decades ago. And then there are other investigations: for election interference, mishandling of sensitive documents and his role in the attack on the US Capitol.

To see a former and potential future president of the United States deal with all these legal issues at once is unusual, said Jennifer Horn, a former chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican Party and a vocal opponent of Mr. Trump. But what is really disturbing about this is that he is the front-runner for a major political party in this country. And you can’t just blame him for that. You should blame that on the party leaders and their core base.

The past week has brought the former president a steady stream of setbacks. Ms. Carroll gave detailed and graphic testimony about meeting Mr. Trump. The judge in the case sought to limit Mr. Trump on social media, as the Manhattan district attorneys office did in its own case. And former Vice President Mike Pence testified before an evidentiary grand jury hearing about Mr. Trumps to reverse the results of the 2020 election.

Mike Murphy, a Republican political strategist who has advised John McCain and Jeb Bush, said the trials and investigations into Mr. Trump often creates a psychological roller coaster for Democrats who hate Trump, giving them hope that he will be brought down, only to abandon them. failed. The legal problems of Mr. Trump has yet to create significant political problems because of the unwavering loyalty of his core supporters.

Since being accused Mr. Trump, his poll numbers are up. The criminal investigations against him, in Georgia and Washington, as well as the trial of Ms. Carrolls and a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the Attorney Generals office in New York, did nothing to dissuade him from his supporters. The poll he cited Thursday predicted he would receive 62 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. His closest opponent, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not yet announced he is running, polled 16 percent.

But the investigations could cause real damage to Mr. Trump. If he is convicted in Manhattan, where he has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, he could face up to four years in prison. Criminal charges in Georgia and Washington may carry harsher penalties. And the New York attorney general’s lawsuit against him accusing him of defrauding lenders and insurers by fraudulently overvaluing his assets could take a heavy financial toll.

Whatever the outcome, any direct connection between Mr. Trump’s legal fate in the rape case and his political fortunes is tenuous. But the lawyers of Ms. Carrolls turned a political bombshell from 2016 into a powerful legal weapon: They plan to use the Access Hollywood tape in which Mr. Trump’s handling of women by genitalia is the basis for a compelling story about a self-styled playboy man-about-town whose modus operandi is to assault women.

Mr. Trump said on the tape that when you’re a hero, they let you do it. When the comments became public during the 2016 election, Mr. Trump described them as locker room banter and after his victory, they became an example of his apparent immunity from scandal.

In the courtroom, which Mr. Trump avoided, Ms. Carrolls that his words should not be ignored, even years after they became public.

This was not locker room talk, Shawn G. Crowley, one of his lawyers, said on the first day of the trial. This is exactly what he did to Ms. Carroll and the other girls. The other women, named Ms. Crowley as Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, are expected to testify for Ms. Carroll.

Ms. described Carroll for the jury how a chance meeting with Mr. Trump at a Bergdorf Goodman store in New York City in the mid-1990s became an encounter that would haunt him for nearly 30 years.

The attack, he said, took place in a dressing room on the sixth floor. After closing Mr. Trump the door, she said, he pushed her against the wall so hard that she hit her head. He applied his mouth to hers, said Ms. Carroll, pulling down her tights, inserted her fingers inside his penis and then his penis.

Ms. testified Carroll that he has not been able to have sex or be in a relationship since.

I am a happy man, but I know I have lost one of the glorious experiences of any man, he said. Being in love with another person, having dinner with them, walking the dog together. I do not have that.

On Thursday, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, Joseph Tacopina, began cross-examining Ms. Carroll. He sought to highlight his memory lapses most prominently his inability to provide the date of the alleged rape and to elicit testimony that he suggested showed the jury how implausible the story was. He mentioned that Ms. Carroll himself wrote in his 2019 memoir, in which he first told the story, that some of the details were strange and unimaginable.

It all boils down to: Do ​​you believe in the unbelievable? Mr. Tacopina said in his opening statement.

The jury, six men and three women, will decide whether Ms. Carroll was vindicated by overwhelming evidence that Mr. Trump carried out the attack. Because the trial is civil, he will face monetary damages instead of a judgment.

Ms. also requests Carrolls to retract what the suit says were defamatory comments on his Truth Social website in October, when he called his case a complete con job and a Hoax and a lie.

The social platform is one of the most effective political tools of Mr. Trump. And legal cases threaten his ability to use it unhindered.

On Tuesday, a prosecutor working for the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, asked a state judge in the falsified business records criminal case to limit Mr. Trump on disseminating evidence online, including that platform.

And on Wednesday, after the former president made posts on Truth Social that called Ms. Carrolls a fabricated SCAM and a misleading and false story, the federal judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, said they were completely inappropriate and suggested the former president was trying to influence the jury.

When, a few hours later, Judge Kaplan was told by Ms. Carrolls is the son of Mr. Eric Trump tweeted an attack on the case of Ms. Carrolls, the judge strongly suggested that the former president could face criminal sanctions.

If I were in your position, Judge Kaplan told Mr. Tacopina, I’m talking to the client.

Kate Christobek contributed reporting.

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