Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends jury selection in the second civil trial at Manhattan Federal Court on January 16, 2024 in New York City, U.S., after Carroll accused Trump of raping her decades ago (in this courtroom sketch ).
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Former President Donald Trump is expected to testify against him on Thursday in the civil libel trial of writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump was scheduled to testify in federal court in Manhattan on Monday, but the trial was postponed after a juror called in sick.
Presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan gave Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba the chance to continue the case that day with eight jurors instead of nine, but Habba declined, telling Kaplan that she was also feeling ill.
The retrial, which was delayed for three days, also marked the return of Trump’s court-centered presidential campaign strategy.
In a Truth Social post on Wednesday evening, Trump explicitly linked his campaign to his legal troubles and announced his trip to New York City following his victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary.
The former president has appeared in several of his active civil and criminal cases in recent weeks, even when he was not required to do so, attracting widespread media attention and new fundraising opportunities for his campaign.
Trump has described all of his legal battles as witch hunts and claimed they were orchestrated by the Biden administration to harm his 2024 presidential bid.
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But a jury in a related civil case last year already found Trump guilty of sexually abusing Carroll at a department store in the 1990s and then defaming her after she made her allegations in 2019, when he was president.
That jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million. Trump is appealing the verdict.
The trial, which resumed Thursday, is solely to decide how much Trump must pay Carroll in damages, as Kaplan noted that the question of whether Trump defamed Carroll has already been resolved.
Carroll’s lawyers are demanding at least $10 million from Trump in this case.
This is developing news. Please check back for updates.
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2024-01-25 16:06:25
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