A federal jury on Tuesday found that Donald Trump sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, a writer, who alleged the former president of attacking her in 1990 in a department store dressing room.
This verdict is the first time Trump has been found guilty and is being held liable for a sexual assault. Trump has previously been accused of sexual misconduct by a number of women. Trump, who announced his reelection a bid to return to the White House, is facing a wave of legal issues; this verdict further tarnishes the former president’s reputation.
Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million by the nine-person jury. In a federal court in Manhattan, the jury pondered for three hours before reaching a judgment.
Carroll testified that following a chance encounter one evening in the spring of 1996, Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. According to the jury, Carroll did not establish that Trump sexually assaulted her by a majority of the evidence. However, the jury held him accountable for slander and sexual abuse. The defamation charge resulted from Trump’s last year’s claim that Carroll’s accusation was a “hoax.”
Trump’s GOP opponents in the 2024 election responded after the release of a jury verdict finding him guilty of sexually assaulting the advice columnist in the 1990s.
Vivek Ramaswamy, a Republican presidential candidate, questioned whether a lawsuit would have been filed if someone other than Trump had been the defendant.
It appears that this is just another instance of the establishment’s anaphylactic reaction to its primary political allergen, Donald Trump, Ramaswamy said. Based on the sheer timing of the allegations—that the alleged offense occurred in the mid-1990s and Ms. Carroll did not sue until 2019–2022, far beyond the statute of limitations for the underlying offense—and in the middle of a spate of other legal charges against Trump for other ancient allegations is suspicious.
The 2024 presidential contest would be simpler without Trump, according to Ramaswamy, a 37-year-old multimillionaire entrepreneur who launched his candidacy in late February. However, he decried the weaponization of the law with decades-old allegations to undercut political opponents.
Ramaswamy declared he looked forward to taking on Trump on the debate stage and winning this election by demonstrating to voters how he will advance the America First movement beyond Trump.
In contrast, his younger challenger, Republican presidential candidate and former two-term governor of Arkansas, Asa Hutchinson, said the jury’s verdict should be taken seriously.
In a statement to Fox News, Hutchinson said he had seen firsthand how flippant and arrogant disrespect for the rule of law can backfire based on 25 years of service in the courtroom. The jury verdict should be taken seriously and is yet another illustration of Donald Trump’s unacceptable behavior.
A jury found Trump guilty on Tuesday of sexually abusing advice writer E. Jean Carroll in 1996, and she was given $5 million as a result.
The verdict was read out in a federal courtroom in New York City on the first day of the trial. The jury found Trump responsible for sexual assault and for defaming Carroll after she made her alleged charges public, but the jury rejected Carroll’s claim that she was raped.
Trump decided to skip the civil trial and was not there when the judgment was announced.