While the trial concerns what Trump should pay for his comments in the immediate aftermath of Carroll's revelations, Crowley noted that his rhetoric about the writer has not stopped. Trump maintains he never maligned Carroll and says her claims are just a partisan smear.
From the court, Trump launched a series of posts on social media about the case. He wrote on his platform Truth Social that Carroll's rape claim was a “blackmail attempt” involving “concocted lies and political shenanigans” and accused the judge of having an “absolute hatred” for him.
Crowley told jurors their job was to answer the question about Trump: “How much money would it take to convince him to stop?”
Trump's lawyer, Alina Haba, said he was “just defending himself” and said the evidence would show Carroll's career has flourished since his indictment. Haba said in her opening argument that Carroll “has been brought back into the spotlight as she always wanted.”
Trump did not attend the previous trial in the case last May, when the jury found that he had sexually assaulted Carroll and awarded her $5 million ($7.6 million) in damages. In light of this ruling, Kaplan told potential jurors that this trial will focus solely on how much money, if any, Trump must pay Carroll for comments he made about her while he was president in 2019.
For the purposes of the new trial, it has already been determined that Trump “sexually assaulted Ms. Carroll,” causing Trump to shake his head from side to side, Kaplan said.
Haba told the judge that Trump planned to testify. Kaplan said the only compromise he would make is for Trump to be able to testify on Monday, even if the trial ends by Thursday. The judge previously rejected Trump's request to postpone the trial for a week so that he could attend his mother-in-law's funeral.
Trump advisor Boris Epshtein, foreground left, leans toward Donald Trump to confer with him and lead defense attorney Alina Haba, right, before jury selection in federal court in New York. credit: AP
“I am not preventing him from being there,” the judge said, referring to the funeral.
“No, you're preventing him from being here,” Haba replied.
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He squirmed in his chair and nodded to two potential jurors — a man and a woman — who stood when asked if they agreed with his mistaken belief that the 2020 election was rigged, and again when three people in the group indicated they felt for the former president. He was treated unfairly by the court system.
This process provided a window into the political beliefs of a microcosm of New Yorkers, drawn from a group that included Manhattan and the northern suburban counties. Some indicated personal relationships with Trump or his opponents. One woman said she advertised for his daughter's company. Another said her father provided transportation services for some of Trump's buildings. Neither of them made the cut.
Former President Donald Trump's motorcade leaves the federal courthouse in Manhattan, New York.credit: AP
Jurors selected for the trial will remain anonymous, even to the parties, attorneys and judicial staff, and will be transported to and from the courtroom from an undisclosed location for their safety, Kaplan said.
Trump has increasingly made his courtroom troubles — including four criminal cases — part of his campaign to reclaim the White House, casting himself as a victim of partisan lawyers, judges and prosecutors, capitalizing on the news coverage that accompanies his visits to the court.
Last week, Trump attended closing arguments in the New York attorney general's fraud case against him — and ended up delivering a six-minute diatribe after his lawyers spoke.
“I think you'll see it as part of the campaign,” Trump told reporters last week.
Carroll, 80, plans to testify about the damage to her career and reputation as a result of Trump's public statements. It is seeking $10 million in damages and millions more in punitive damages.
If Trump testifies, he will be under strict restrictions on what he can say. Kaplan said that because of the previous ruling, Trump cannot stand on the witness stand and say he did not sexually assault Carroll or defame him.
In this courtroom sketch, E. Gene Carroll, right, turns toward former President Donald Trump.credit: AP
Last May, a different jury awarded Carroll $5 million after concluding that Trump sexually assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the spring of 1996, then defamed her in 2022 by claiming she made it up after she publicly revealed it. In her 2019 memoir, the jury said Carroll did not prove that Trump raped her.
Trump appealed and paid none of those damages, although he put up $5.55 million in escrow to cover the judgment and other costs if he lost his appeal. One unresolved issue in the first trial is how much Trump owes for comments he made about Carroll while he was president. This will be the only task of the new jury.
Even before potential jurors were brought to court on Tuesday, Trump's lawyer Michael Madeo complained that the judge had made “inconsistent and unfair” rulings against Trump before the trial began. He said the rulings “fundamentally changed our ability to defend this case and largely stripped us of our defenses.”
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He also said that given Trump's pending appeal, the trial should not proceed at all.
Trump (77 years old) continued to assert that he did not know Carroll, that he had never met her at the Bergdorf Goodman store in midtown Manhattan in the spring of 1996, and that Carroll had fabricated her claims about selling her book for political reasons.
AP
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