Jury finds Trump liable for sexual abuse, accuser awarded $5M

NEW YORK (AP) — A jury found Donald Trump liable Tuesday for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million in a judgment that could haunt the former president as he campaigns to regain the White House.

The verdict was announced in a federal courtroom in New York City on the first day of jury deliberations. Jurors rejected Carroll’s claims that she was raped, but found Trump liable for sexually abusing her.

Hours earlier, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan read instructions on the law to the nine-person jury before the panel began discussing Carroll’s allegations of battery and defamation shortly before noon.

Trump, who did not attend the trial, has insisted he never sexually assaulted Carroll or even knew her.

Kaplan told jurors that the first question on the verdict form was to decide whether they think there is more than a 50% chance that Trump raped Carroll inside a store dressing room. If they answered yes, they would then decide whether compensatory and punitive damages should be awarded.

If they answered no on the rape question, they could then decide if Trump subjected her to lesser forms of assault involving sexual contact without her consent or forcible touching to degrade her or gratify his sexual desire. If they answered yes on either of those questions, they will decide if damages are appropriate.

On defamation claims stemming from a statement Trump made on social media last October, Kaplan said jurors needed to be guided by a higher legal standard — clear and convincing evidence.

He said they would have to agree it was “highly probable” that Trump’s statement was false and was made maliciously with deliberate intent to injure or out of hatred or ill will with reckless disregard for Carroll’s rights.

Meanwhile, Trump posted a new message on social media, complaining that he is now awaiting the jury’s decision “on a False Accusation.” He said he is “not allowed to speak or defend myself, even as hard nosed reporters scream questions about this case at me.”

Trump said he will not speak until after the trial, “but will appeal the Unconstitutional silencing of me … no matter the outcome!”

Trump never attended the trial, which is in its third week, and rejected an invitation to testify, which the judge extended through the weekend even after Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, said Thursday that his client would not testify.

Tacopina told the jury in closing arguments Monday that Carroll’s account is too far fetched to be believed. He said she made it up to fuel sales of a 2019 memoir in which she first publicly revealed her claims and to disparage Trump for political reasons.

Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, cited excerpts from Trump’s October deposition and his notorious comments on a 2005 “Access Hollywood” video in which he said celebrities can grab women between the legs without asking.

She urged jurors to believe her client.

“He didn’t even bother to show up here in person,” Kaplan said. She said much of what he said in his deposition and in public statements “actually supports our side of the case.”

“In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she said. “He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.”

Carroll, 79, testified that she had a chance encounter with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store across the street from Trump Tower. She said it was a lighthearted interaction in which they teased each other about trying on a piece of lingerie before Trump became violent inside a dressing room.

A nearly 30-year-old rape claim against Donald Trump went to trial Tuesday as jurors in the federal civil case heard a former advice columnist’s allegation of being attacked in a luxury department store dressing room.

Tacopina told jurors there was no reason to call Trump as a witness when Carroll can’t even recall when her encounter with Trump happened.

He told the jury Carroll made up her claims after hearing about a 2012 “Law and Order” episode in which a woman is raped in the dressing room of the lingerie section of a Bergdorf Goodman store.

“They modeled their secret scheme on an episode of one of the most popular shows on television,” he said of Carroll.

Two of Carroll’s friends testified that she told them about the encounter with Trump shortly after it happened, many years before the “Law and Order” episode aired.

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TRUMP INDICTED: Manhattan Grand Jury Indicts Trump Over Stormy Daniels Probe

NEW YORK (AP)– A Manhattan grand jury has voted to indict Donald Trump on charges involving payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign to silence claims of an extramarital sexual encounter, the first ever criminal case against a former U.S. president and a jolt to Trump’s bid to retake the White House in 2024.

The indictment, confirmed Thursday by Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for Trump, and other people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to discuss sealed criminal charges, is an extraordinary development after years of investigations into his business, political and personal dealings. It is likely to galvanize critics who say Trump lied and cheated his way to the top and embolden supporters who feel the Republican is being unfairly targeted by a Democratic prosecutor.

Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing and has repeatedly attacked the investigation as politically motivated, was expected to surrender to authorities next week, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to discuss a matter that remained under seal.

In bringing the charges, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is embracing an unusual case that had been investigated by two previous sets of prosecutors, both of which declined to take the politically explosive step of seeking Trump’s indictment.

In the weeks leading up to the indictment, Trump railed about the investigation on social media and urged supporters to protest on his behalf, prompting tighter security around the Manhattan criminal courthouse.

Trump faces other potential legal perils as he seeks to reassert control of the Republican Party and stave off a slew of one-time allies who are seeking or are likely to oppose him for the presidential nomination.

The district attorney in Atlanta has for two years been investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to meddle in Georgia’s 2020 vote count. And a U.S. Justice Department special counsel is investigating Trump’s storage of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida and his efforts to reverse the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump Lawyer: ‘If He’s Indicted This is an All-Out War’

NEW YORK (The Hill) — A lawyer for former President Trump said on Monday that it will be “an all-out war” if Trump is indicted in the Manhattan district attorney’s probe into a 2016 hush-money payment.

“They can do what they want,” Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said of the possible indictment in an interview with former Trump adviser Kimberly Guilfoyle on Monday. “At that point, this is an all-out war.”

“He’ll be there loud and proud, and there’s nobody that’s gonna make him cower,” Tacopina told Guilfoyle, who is also the fiancée of the former president’s oldest son Donald Trump Jr.

The Trump attorney similarly told the New York Daily News on Friday that the former president would not refuse to surrender if he is indicted, emphasizing that “there won’t be a standoff at Mar-a-Lago with Secret Service and the Manhattan DA’s office.”

Tacopina has been making the rounds on TV defending the former president, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) appears to be nearing the end of his investigation into a $130,000 payment made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.

An indictment appeared increasingly close, after Trump suggested on Saturday that he could be arrested in the Manhattan probe as soon as Tuesday and called on his supporters to protest the possible indictment.

The former president said in a post on Truth Social that “illegal leaks” indicate that “the far & away leading Republican candidate & former president of the United States of America, will be arrested on Tuesday of next week.”

However, a Trump spokesperson said he had not been formally notified of charges.

‘GREAT PERIL’: Economic Expert Issues Dire Warning on Biden Economic Policies

WASHINGTON–Steve Moore, chief economist at FreedomWorks, issued a stern warning Monday that recent bank collapses may be “just the tip of the iceberg” of Biden’s failed economic policies.

In an appearance on Fox News, Moore told Harris Faulkner that the Biden administration’s spending caused the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, leading to financial problems for many major banks.

“I agree with the president that we don’t have an overall banking crisis. The system is sound, but I do think you have a lot of major banks that are in some trouble. And SVB, the Silicon Valley Bank, may just be the tip of the iceberg here,” Trump’s former White House adviser said of the current economic situation. “And I think it’s important for people to understand how this potential banking crisis happened. It’s not because there aren’t enough bank regulators, as Biden is trying to say. It’s because of the massive inflation and the trillions and trillions of dollars of borrowing that the federal government has done that has put our financial system in great jeopardy and great peril.”

“You can’t just keep doing this month after month, year after year, borrowing trillions and trillions of dollars. And so what happened, because of the Biden spending and debt policies, is that not only did inflation go up, but interest rates have gone up,” Moore added. “Harris, as you know, the Fed has had to raise interest rates eight or nine times, and they’re talking about more interest rate increases to come. And that’s caused a lot of financial problems for these big banks is the interest rates go up.”

Biden responded Monday to the economic crisis, stating that Americans can “feel confident” in their banking system after his administration’s response to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and Signature Bank last week.

“No losses will be borne by the taxpayers,” Biden said. “Instead, the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund. Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them.”

POLL: DeSantis Beats Trump in Hypothetical 2024 Matchup

WASHINGTON– Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has beaten former President Trump in a hypothetical 2024 match-up for the GOP presidential nomination.  

In a nationwide poll conducted by Yahoo News, DeSantis defeated Trump by a 5-point margin with 47 percent of registered voters saying they would support DeSantis compared to 42 percent who said they would again back Trump.

The latest results, taken in the first few days of December, are a polar opposite from a mid-October poll which found Trump ahead by 9 percentage points, with 45 percent to DeSantis’s 36 percent. 

In October, 49 percent of Republican voters said they wanted Trump as the nominee over “someone else,” but that number dropped to 41 percent in December.

Conducted from Dec. 1 to 5, the poll surveyed 1,653 U.S. adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.