One day after Donald Trump’s victory in the Republican presidential primary in Iowa, a defamation trial against the ex-president began in a New York court. The columnist and author E. Jean Carroll is demanding damages of ten million dollars (9.1 million euros) for statements made by the president in 2019. In a first trial, Trump had already been convicted of sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll.
At the start of the trial, the jury was to be selected on Tuesday. Trump announced last week that he wanted to appear in person and confront Carroll, who is now 80. He did not do this in the first trial. According to US media reports, Trump wanted to attend the court hearing and then travel to New Hampshire, where the second presidential primaries will be held next week.
At the beginning of May last year, Trump was sentenced to five million dollars in damages and compensation for the sexual abuse and defamation of the journalist Carroll. The columnist and author accuses Trump of raping her in a dressing room at the New York luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman in the spring of 1996. The long-time columnist for “Elle” magazine first made her accusation public in 2019, when Trump was president. The Republican then accused Carroll of lying and said she wasn’t his “type.”
Two weeks after Trump’s conviction, Carroll called for even harsher punishment for the president in an updated lawsuit after he again denied Carroll’s rape allegations and insulted her in a live CNN town hall in front of an audience of millions. “This is a fake story, a made-up story,” Trump said. Carroll is a “crazy person”.
In the first Republican presidential primary in the US state of Iowa, Trump confirmed his favorite status for his party’s presidential candidacy with a clear victory on Monday. With 51 percent of the vote, Trump left his challengers far behind.
