Trump’s despicable character makes the case of E. Jean Carroll

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A federal jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation of writer E. Jean Carroll on Tuesday after less than three hours of deliberations, delivering a swift and devastating judgment on the behavior and character of the former president.

The plaintiff showed remarkable courage and credibility during the three days of testimony, especially under cross-examination. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina scored some points and lost more with his exaggeration and over-the-top attacks on Carroll.

But as much as Carrolls heroism, Trump’s extraordinary villainy sealed his fate.

Consider the facts of the case aside from the involvement of a former president of the United States: A woman meets a man in a department store, flirts with him and follows him into a dressing room, where he allegedly assaults her . He did not report the episode for 30 years, and neither did his friends who eventually came forward to testify that he had told them about it decades earlier.

Such a case seems like an uphill battle. Most attorneys will avoid bringing it based on the strong likelihood of a verdict for the defense.

What made this case different was the character of the defendant and the success of the plaintiffs in presenting it to the jury. Over the course of eight days of testimony, Carroll showed Trump to be a bully, a coward and a predator.

Trump’s instinct as a bully is to shame and discredit his critics. Instead of simply denying Carrolls allegations, he insisted on dismissing the case as a scam and Carroll as a mentally ill wack job. His real Trumpian coup de grace was that the plaintiff was not his type and that there was no way I could be attracted to him, a gratuitously vicious taunt that backfired when he confused Carroll with his ex-wife Marla Maples. in a generally damaging deposition.

Moreover, despite his repeated swashbuckling claims that he wants to defend himself in court, Trump has revealed his cowardice by turning around and failing to do so. People with trial experience (myself included) predicted as much: Trump’s long record of lies would ensure the bloodshed of a cross-examination and possible exposure on multiple perjury counts. Trump, who has spent much of the last few years desperately trying to avoid consequences for his behavior, has a well-known tendency to talk big and then back down.

To make matters worse, Trumps refusal to even appear in court almost certainly alienated the jury and allowed Carrolls to have a field day in closing arguments.

He did not look you in the eye and denied the rape of Ms. Carroll, Carroll’s attorney Michael Ferrara told the jury. You must draw the conclusion that it is because he did it.

Trumps pugnacious lawyers have no viable response to this line of argument.

More importantly, the evidence revealed that Trump was a sexual predator. This was helped by federal rules of evidence, which allowed the former president to be convicted of his propensity to assault women based on his past similar behavior.

The rules in most cases prohibit the introduction of prior bad acts to suggest that a defendant has done it before so you can bet he did it this time. That line of argument flies in the face of our general social and legal commitment to judge a defendant based on behavior rather than character.

But Congress has allowed such evidence in sexual assault cases. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan accordingly instructed the jury that evidence that Trump had previously engaged in sexual assault could be considered against his tendency to do so again.

So the jury was able to consider the testimony of two of Trump’s other alleged victims, Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who could think of no reason to make up their stories, and concluded that if he did to them he probably did it to Carroll.

Perhaps the most memorable and damning evidence of Trump’s penchant for sexual predation consists of his own words on the infamous Access Hollywood tape: I’m not even waiting. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. As Carrolls’ attorney argued, this is more evidence of Trump’s reprehensible character: Trump revealed in his own words how he treats women.

The damning verdict will of course be ignored by a segment of the electorate willing to ignore or ignore every one of Trump’s transgressions no matter how serious. But for the rest of us, the verdict was about more than his misbehavior one afternoon in 1996. It was a judgment of a character who was by leaps and bounds more despicable than any human being to conquer. the presidency.

Harry Litman is the host of the Talking Feds podcast. @harrylitman

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