Judge drops the hammer on Donald Trump
E. Jean Carroll already won her first trial against Donald Trump to the tune of $5 million. Now her second trial against Trump is underway. This isn’t an appeal or a do-over. It’s in addition to the first trial. This works in Carroll’s favor, because the results of the first trial are now legally considered the truth.
To that end, Judge Kaplan informed Trump today that when he testifies in this trial, he won’t be able to dispute any of what the first jury concluded. In other words, Trump can’t get on the stand and claim that he didn’t rape or sexually assault Carroll.
This is huge because we know that if Trump does take the stand, he’ll probably end up doing it anyway. And given how the judge has laid out the law, such testimony would merely result in even bigger damages against Trump.
At this point Trump’s attorneys are probably furiously trying to find a way to keep him from testifying. There’s really no way for him to help himself by testifying, and at the rate things are going, he’d very likely hurt himself. Trump is going to lose this second trial. It’s just a matter of how big he’s going to lose it.
