Former US President Donald Trump is a “habitual liar” and sexual abuser, according to E. Jean Carroll, a famous columnist who has accused Trump of rape. Carroll filed a lawsuit against Trump last year, claiming that he raped her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1996 and then defamed her by denying it happened.
In the closing arguments in Carroll’s civil lawsuit for battery and defamation on Monday, her lawyer Roberta Kaplan argued that Trump had destroyed Carroll’s reputation to protect his own. She said that the evidence of 10 witnesses supported Carroll’s account, while Trump had declined to testify.
Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina countered that large parts of Carroll’s account were “unbelievable” and that the whole story was an unbelievable work of fiction. Tacopina accused Carroll of exploiting the pain and suffering of real victims of sexual abuse to bring a politically motivated case against Trump.
During the closing arguments, Carroll’s lawyer Kaplan told the jury that Trump must face justice, pointing out that no one, even a former president, was above the law. She further argued that the evidence showed that Carroll was not a random victim of an attack by Trump but one of a series of women who fell victim to his “modus operandi” of charming and then assaulting them.
The jury is expected to begin considering its verdict in the case on Tuesday. The case has attracted widespread attention as it is seen as a test of the legal system’s ability to hold a former president accountable for his actions.
Carroll’s lawyers have argued that the case is not about politics but about justice for a victim of sexual assault. They have also dismissed Tacopina’s accusations of conspiracy, arguing that Martin would not have written the messages if she was part of a conspiracy.