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E. Jean Carroll’s legal team is confident that former President Donald Trump has “no legitimate argument” after a jury found him guilty Tuesday of sexual assault and defamation of the writer.
“I have rarely felt as confident about an appeal as I do in this case,” Robbie Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said Wednesday morning on NBC’s “Today.” “You don’t have a legitimate case for an appeal.” A federal court in New York found that Donald Trump sexually assaulted and defamed Carroll, who accused him of assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. After three hours of deliberations, the nine-member jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million.
After the ruling, Donald Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina said the former president will appeal because “they dismissed the rape claim and they’ve always maintained it was a rape case, so it’s a little confusing. But we’re moving forward.”
Carroll told CNN Wednesday morning that she shook Tacopina’s hand after the hearing and told the attorney, “He did it and you know it.” Tacopina smiled but didn’t respond verbally. Although Carroll testified that Trump raped her in a dressing room in 1996, the jury found that Carroll could not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Donald Trump committed that crime.
Donald Trump vented his frustration over the case in a dozen posts on Truth Social, accusing the judge of bias, calling the case a “witch hunt trial” and denying knowing who Carroll is.
Former President Donald Trump wrote Wednesday morning, “I have no idea who this woman, who made a false and totally fabricated accusation, is. Hopefully, justice will be served on appeal.”
When asked on CNN what she thought of the ruling, Carroll deferred to her attorney. But when asked again, she offered some insight: “Well, I immediately say in my head, ‘Oh yes, you did, oh yes, you did.’ See, that’s my reaction,” she said, referring to the rape allegation. Even if he wasn’t found guilty of rape, sexual assault is a “very serious offense”.
Kaplan said, she expected, Trump’s legal team to drag out the process, but predicted the case would be completed within a year.
