Donald Trump’s only realistic shot at winning the E. Jean Carroll trial just came and went

| 7:27 pm EDT May 1, 2023
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The cross examination of E. Jean Carroll has now ended. Trump attorney Joe Tacopina tried every bully tactic to try to get her to fall to pieces so she’d discredit herself, but it didn’t happen. This was Trump’s only real shot, and now it’s gone. Everything else scheduled in this trial is now set to go Carroll’s way.

Carroll’s side will now have multiple corroborating witnesses testify. If any of these witnesses are seen as convincing, they’ll help Carroll’s case. And if any of them fall apart on cross examination, they’ll just become irrelevant to the trial. Nothing that happens with these witnesses can actually help Trump’s case.

Then there’s Trump’s refusal to show up and testify, which hurts his side. In a criminal trial the prosecution has to make an overwhelming case, and the defense doesn’t necessarily have to do anything. But this isn’t a criminal trial. It’s a civil trial, where both sides are expected to make a case for their claims, and the jury has to decide which side is more likely in the right. Trump is essentially putting on no case. By default that steers the jury toward siding with Carroll.

So why is Trump essentially forfeiting this case by declining to testify? There are various possible explanations, ranging from fear of further criminally exposing himself by testifying, to simply a depraved desire to torture Carroll during cross examination even if it causes him to lose. Or maybe Trump’s visibly worsening cognitive state has him confused about how he’s even supposed to be proceeding. Take your pick.

But as things stand, Trump is in the process of losing this trial. It’s still theoretically possible that he’ll decide at the last minute that he wants to testify in his own defense. He does have a consistent tendency to tepidly do nothing, and then once he realizes he’s basically already lost, overreact in panicked fashion at the last minute. But that seems unlikely.

At this point Trump’s best hope would be that the jury simply decides it hates E. Jean Carroll as a witness and doesn’t want to side with her no matter what. But that also seems unlikely. She held up well personally as a witness, and so did her story. If anything, by using the high risk strategy of harassing Carroll during cross examination, Trump and his team have probably pushed the jury more in the direction of siding with Carroll, and siding big. The trial continues, but the outcome may have already been determined by the time Carroll left the stand without cracking.