Author E Jean Carroll mentioned she wouldn’t hesitate to sue former President Donald Trump once more if he continues to defame her, saying the hassle to battle again in opposition to his assaults showcased how the justice system can be utilized to carry the highly effective to account.
Carroll spoke to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Monday, just some days after a jury in federal court docket awarded her $83.3 million in damages for making defamatory statements about her for years. Trump has up to now resisted making any remarks about Carroll after the decision, a notable shift since at one level within the trial, he posted greater than 40 missives on Fact Social about her. However Carroll mentioned she would “completely” file one other go well with if the huge verdict doesn’t deter the previous president, regardless of the emotional toll she mentioned the trial took on her.
“Many individuals, as you recognize, have been by a lot worse than I went by with that trial,” she mentioned. “I’m greater than keen to do it once more as a result of we achieved a lot in a seven-day trial. We did what folks thought was unimaginable. We beat Donald Trump.”
Carroll had sued the previous president over his continued assaults in opposition to her after she accused him of raping her in a dressing room in a Manhattan division retailer in 1996. The previous president repeatedly referred to as Carroll a “whack job” and “fraud”, insults that continued even after a jury discovered him accountable for defamation and sexual abuse, awarding Carroll $5 million in damages in Could 2023.
Maddow requested Carroll how she felt sitting in the identical room as Trump through the trial, an ordeal the author described as terrifying till she was on the witness stand.
“Amazingly, I appeared out, and he was nothing. He was a phantom,” Carroll recalled, saying she had had an “precise breakdown” earlier than the trial started. “It was an astonishing discovery for me. He’s nothing. We don’t have to be afraid of him, he may be knocked out. Twice.”
Shawn Crowley, certainly one of Carroll’s attorneys, mentioned Trump’s determination to seem on the trial solely damage his defence and demonstrated his sample of behaviour to jurors.
“He himself, through the trial, helped us make that argument by leaving court docket every day … and persevering with to defame her whereas sitting in court docket on trial for defaming her,” Crowley informed Maddow. “I feel that it form of helped the jury to not simply imagine what we have been telling them… however see the way in which this man simply believes he’s not sure by any legal guidelines.”
Crowley mentioned that regardless of Trump’s antics throughout his rallies, within the courtroom he was simply one other defendant who needed to abide by the foundations of a trial.
“When Donald Trump is stripped of all the press and never at a rally and there’s no TV cameras … he’s not that scary,” Crowley mentioned. “I feel when you might have a robust choose… and you’ve got actual attorneys, you actually can get him to behave. He’s only a man.”
“He’s only a man typically appearing like a petulant toddler,” the lawyer added. “However he’s only a man.”
