E. Jean Carroll Continues to Testify After in Defamation Case Against Donald Trump

In a Manhattan federal court on Thursday, January 18, columnist E. Jean Carroll, 80, concluded her testimony in the trial where she accused former President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her. With Trump absent from the courtroom, Carroll emphatically denied benefiting from the publicity surrounding her allegations. The testimony followed a previous day's scolding from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who warned Trump about making audible comments regarding the trial, prompting a potential ejection if such behavior continued.

During the trial, a Trump attorney sought to portray Carroll as having achieved fame, if not fortune, following the publication of her memoir accusing Trump of rape in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. Carroll's lawyer confronted her with mean tweets from Trump supporters, suggesting that social media posts blamed on former POTUS and his statements were sent before those statements were released. In her final day on the witness stand, Carroll acknowledged the unexpected infamy and death threats she received after publicly accusing Trump in a 2019 article in New York Magazine.

Responding wryly to her changed circumstances, the writer remarked, "I've been invited to two parties. Yes, I’m more well-known, and I’m hated by a lot more people." Trump, who attended the trial's initial days, was absent on Thursday, January 18. Caroll's lawyer argued that Trump's supporters, mimicking his behavior, were behind the mean tweets. The judge intervened at one point, deeming a line of questioning as repetitious.

Entering its third day, the trial is centered on assessing potential damages arising from Trump's statements in June 2019, a response to the publication of excerpts from Carroll's memoirs in a magazine. In a separate trial last May, a jury awarded Carroll a million in damages, finding that Trump sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman store in 1996 and defamed her in October 2022. Notably, the business mogul did not attend that trial, claiming advice from his attorney to stay away.

Joseph Tacopina, the former legal representative for the Republican frontrunner, recently withdrew from the ex-president's legal team. Tacopina's departure notably occurred just a day before the start of a trial determining potential damages Trump might owe to Carroll for defamation in 2019. In a notable development, Tacopina participated in his first interview since leaving Trump's legal team on the eve of the Carroll defamation trial.

According to Mediaite reports, he engaged in a conversation with Rev. Al Sharpton on MSNBC and emphasized that this would be his only interview discussing his abrupt exit from Trump's defense team. Tacopina explained, “I left the team because it was just my time. I had to follow my compass, and my compass told me it was my time.” He led Trump's legal team in the civil rape case filed by Carroll.