Former United States President Donald Trump (2017-2021) will testify before a nine-person jury that was chosen this Tuesday, in his defamation case against the writer E. Jean Carroll. The process began during the day, in New York, and in this the complainant will also speak.
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Trump will take the stand. This was decided by Judge Lewis Kaplan, even though the columnist's lawyers had expressed concern that the former president could “wreak chaos” if he attended the trial.
Carroll will take the lectern this Wednesday to explain his version of events to the jury.
Trump, who on Monday won his first pre-election victory after sweeping more than 50% of the votes in the Iowa caucuses, attended the federal court in Manhattan dressed in his 'uniform', a black suit and a red tie.
In this trial, which according to Kaplan will last only three to five days, Trump will have to respond to accusations of defaming Carroll when he claimed, in 2019, that he did not know the writer, and that his confession that the former president had sexually abused of her in the nineties was false.
Carroll asks for ten million dollars
Last May, a jury already convicted Trump of sexual abuse and defamation of the writer, but not of rape. Since then, the former president has continued to maintain that he does not know her, again and again casting doubt on her version of events.
Last week, Judge Kaplan ruled that in this case Trump cannot deny sexual assault, as it is a case that has already been the subject of a previous jury ruling, something he reiterated again this Tuesday.
That means jurors won't go into Carroll's sexual allegations, and their only task will be to decide whether Trump harmed her with his 2019 statements and, if so, the subsequent financial penalties.
According to the writer's lawyer, Shawn Crowley, Trump disrupted his client's life and encouraged his followers to attack Carroll on social media.
For its part, Trump's defense pointed out that, after his statements against Trump, Carroll gained fame and followers: specifically, he went from having 10,000 followers on X (formerly Twitter) in 2017 to more than 282,000 in 2024.
Selection of the nine jurors
On Tuesday morning, the selection of the nine jurors – who remain anonymous – from the more than forty called took place.
This selection process lasted more than three hours and neither Trump nor Carroll could speak while the judge questioned the potential jurors, with questions such as: Have you donated to Trump's election campaigns? Have you read Carroll's columns? Or do you think there was electoral fraud in the last presidential elections?
Unable to speak, on many occasions Trump chose to turn his back to Kaplan to maintain eye contact while these people gave their answers, unlike Carroll, who chose to keep his gaze forward, in the direction of the judge.
The Republican spoke today on his social network, Truth Social,: “I should be in New Hampshire, campaigning and fighting for our country, and I will be later today, but I had to spend time in federal court with a radical left judge who hates Trump, otherwise politically biased.”
A busy January for Trump
Trump was only present at jury selection and did not hear the lawyers' speeches in person.
In addition to being in full campaign for the Republican primaries, on Thursday of last week the final arguments in the civil case for fraud against his family business were concluded, in which the former president faces a fine of up to 370 million dollars and a lifetime ban on New York State real estate.
And it is not just the trials in New York, as Trump faces four other criminal cases: two for trying to reverse the result of the 2020 elections, in which he lost against the current president, Joe Biden; one for taking classified documents from the White House to his Florida residence; and one related to payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels to conceal a sexual encounter.
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