Trump on Trial

In the wake of the settlement of the Dominion defamation lawsuit, another defamation trial begins next Monday. This one will be in federal court in Manhattan. It’s the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump, alleging he defamed her after she alleged, recently, that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.

The judge has already declined Trump’s request to delay the trial because of the publicity around his recent indictment. He pointed out Trump is responsible for much of the publicity in the first place.

Both sides are submitting pretrial motions in advance of the start of trial. Carroll’s lawyers have asked the judge to rule on the admissibility of evidence Trump wants to offer that would violate laws that shield rape victims from having their prior sexual history called into question. But perhaps most interesting is a letter Trump sent to the court, requesting a ruling on what the jury should be told about his planned absence from the courtroom—apparently, he only intends to be there for his testimony. In a civil case, defendants don’t have to be present in the courtroom. It’s a choice they get to make. But juries can draw inferences from an absence, and Trump wants the judge to spin it for him.

Trump is worried about the “logistical and financial” burdens his presence in the courthouse would impose on the city. Streets would be shut down. The Secret Service would be called out. Elevators in the courthouse would have to be shut down. The incredibly thoughtful former president cannot bear the thought of imposing such burdens on the people of Manhattan. So, his lawyers write:

That’s right! Trump wants the judge to give him a pass with the jury. He also wants the judge to remind them that he is the former president and a very important person.

Carroll’s lawyers did not mince words. “Mr. Trump’s motion is frivolous,” they wrote. “Given the gravity of the allegations at issue in this case, one might expect Mr. Trump to appear in person. But he is obviously free to choose otherwise. Either way, Ms. Carroll has a right to play Donald Trump’s deposition at trial…so she has no need for him to testify live.”

However, they continue, “the notion that Mr. Trump would not appear as some sort of favor to the City of New York—and that the jury should be instructed as much—‘taxes the credulity of the credulous’…some of the most important and high-profile cases in our Nation’s history have been tried in the Southern District of New York…This Court and the City it calls home are fully equipped to handle any logistical burdens that may result from Mr. Trump’s appearance at a weeklong trial.”

The conclusion of the letter is unrelenting: “If Mr. Trump decides not to appear at his own trial for sexual assault and defamation, the jury may draw whatever inferences it chooses—and Mr. Trump has no right to a judicial endorsement of his (flimsy) excuse.” Carroll’s lawyers also point out what else Trump has been up to and plans to do during the trial.

If this is any omen of the caliber of legal wrangling we’re going to see during this trial, then it truly is a shame we won’t be able to watch the proceedings—there are no cameras in the courtroom in federal court.

Overnight, the former president was busy posting videos on Truth Social, ranging from a petulant “Where’s Hunter” to a screed rehashing his complaints about Alvin Bragg. It’s hard to tell if he’s mid-meltdown, unabashedly focusing on raising money off his legal woes, or perhaps both.

As Carroll’s lawyers pointed out in their letter to the court, whether Trump shows up at trial or not is largely irrelevant, because they are entitled to play his deposition for the jury. It includes some doozies, like his misidentification of a photo of Carroll, around the time of the alleged rape, as his second wife, Marla Maples. This, after saying, in the course of making the comments Carroll sued him over, that she wasn’t his type.

One of the lessons of the Dominion trial, something that we’ve discussed here in the past, is that private parties file lawsuits to redress damages they have suffered. Dominion didn’t bring its lawsuit to redress larger societal grievances. That was a bitter pill when Dominion agreed to settle just shy of trial. Where is the accountability for the lies Fox told its viewers?

The Carroll case, in some ways, is a case brought by one woman. But it will be hard for the public, so recently disappointed that there was neither a trial nor an apology from Fox following Dominion’s disclosures, not to pin at least some of their hopes on her, whether that’s fair to her or not. Because defamation cases are about what’s true, they have a way of surfacing interesting and important information. Dominion spilled a fair bit of tea about how Fox spread the Big Lie to the American people. Next week could be illuminating too.

We’re in this together,

Joyce