Former US President Donald J. Trump’s Defamation Trial: Latest Updates and Impact on 2024 Election Campaign

Former US President Donald J. Trump, in a file photograph. EFE/Justin Lane

New York, Jan 15 (EFE).- Former United States President Donald Trump (2017-2021) will return to the dock this Tuesday in a New York court, where a jury will have to decide how much money the magnate should pay to the writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her.

The appointment, to which Trump himself wants to attend in person, is the second trial that the Republican has faced in the last week in the same city.

Last Thursday the final arguments concluded in the civil case for fraud against his family business, in which the former president faces a fine of up to $370 million and a lifetime ban in the New York state real estate sector.

This Tuesday, Trump will have to respond to very different accusations: 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 her in the 1990s was false. .

Carroll is asking for $10 million in compensation.

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 defend that he does not know her, and to cast doubt on her version of events.

Last Thursday, after briefly participating in the closing arguments of his fraud trial and reiterating his position that all the proceedings against him are part of a political campaign, Trump declared his intention to also attend his defamation trial in person. , something he did not do during the abuse case.

His announcement sparked a legal battle between Carroll’s lawyers, who do not want the trial to become a circus, and Trump’s.

In a decision issued last Tuesday, the judge presiding over the trial, Lewis Kaplan, ruled that Trump cannot dispute the abuse allegations against him. He also decided that Carroll does not have to prove that Trump defamed her, since her allegations are virtually the same as those in the previous trial.

“This trial will not be a repetition of the previous one,” reads its decision.

Carroll’s lawyers, however, don’t trust Trump to follow the rules, and on Friday asked Kaplan to restrict the former president’s comments.

If Trump testifies as a witness in the trial, Carroll’s lawyer wrote, “his recent statements and behavior strongly suggest that he will seek to create chaos,” adding that “there are many reasons why Mr. Trump might perceive that turning this trial in a circus it would favor him”.

Trump himself has made his position clear. At a press conference on Thursday, following closing arguments in his fraud trial, the former president declared that his multiple criminal trials could be considered “part of the campaign” to return to the White House.

The data seems to prove him right. The former president has managed to raise millions of dollars every time he has been indicted, and he is the favorite in all polls to win the Republican nomination for this year’s presidential election.

In addition to his trial in New York, 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 Stromy Daniels to hide an old affair.

Jorge Dastis

2024-01-15 19:30:00
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