Jury finds Trump abused, defamed E. Jean Carroll after only three hours of deliberating

Lisa, you were inside the courtroom for much of what happened during this trial, first your reaction to the

jury

's verdict, you know, Nicole, I was surprised that the

jury

returned such a quick verdict. Glenn Kirschner was there earlier today and he said the funny rule of thumb, at least among ex-prosecutors, is that for every week of trial you should expect one day of deliberations, and since we've been here for over two weeks, the idea that the jury would return a verdict and

three

hours

surprised me. I said that I could not conceive of going to this presentation that all nine jurors would vote unanimously for Donald Trump, and as Andrew and Mary know well, and the federal system, even in a civil case, there has to be a unanimous jury, I think this today's verdict While it's amazing what I predicted would happen, Donald Trump's first degree of accountability doesn't come from a prosecutor or special counsel or even the district attorney-elect, but rather came at the hands of the 79-year-old advice columnist who had the courage to stand up. even Donald Trump and saying what you said about me was wrong and malicious and I'm not going to stand for it and we can all learn a lesson from the bravery of aging Carol and this post made me a critical decision about sexual assault and hopefully a measure of the evolution we've made as a society and our treatment and understanding of how victims behave Nicole um I want to go over the actual decision um by this jury with you Andrew Weissman was the first question that Mr.

Trump raped Ms. Carol, which the jury said no, but the second Mr. Trump sexually

abused

Ms. Carol did, tell me, in your opinion, the meaning of that, so it's important to know what the difference is between the first, so which essentially indicts the first indictment and the second indictment and it's kind of graphic, but this is what the jury was asked to decide because, frankly, this is a graphic indictment, because what has now been found with the former president did, so the first complaint has to do with actual rape involving sexual penetration the second has to do with sexual assault that doesn't go that far doesn't require it doesn't include penetration and so what the jury did split between those things the first and second in my opinion what it suggests is that the jury was very careful and was looking for corroboration from Gene Carroll um that's pretty typical of a jury looking to see you know what we thought with this person saying the truth, but is there any corroboration if you think? what the other two victims he testified about was also a sexual assault what the defendant here Donald Trump admitted and confessed to on the Access Hollywood tape that it was a sexual assault so he can grab people by their genitals women by the genitals confession that he that what these women were complaining about was something that she said he did so I think that is why in my opinion they may have separated those two, the first and the second second confession from the arraignment room but it was played in the courtroom and it was a confession in a pattern of belief that when I'm actually going to play this is what was played in front of the jury and when they singled you out they let you do it you can do anything grab them by the you could do anything that's what you said right ok historically that's true with stars is it true that stars can grab women by the well that's what happens if you look at the last few million years i guess which has been largely true not always but largely true unfortunately or fortunately consider yourself a star I think you can say yes Mary what a jury heard is in a long line of stars going back a million years.

You can quote grabbing women for the word pum and again, I don't mean a confession in a criminal. context, but what the jury heard on Andrew's point is corroboration that Trump agreed that he could do what Gene Carroll accused him of doing.

abused

Ms. Carroll, the jury decided yes, that she was injured as a result of Trump's conduct, the jury decided yes, if so, I believe the dollar amount was two million dollars for that responsibility of your part, Mary, so you know the civil cases we've been talking about. about and so the allegation in the complaint was that Mr.

Trump committed an assault on Gene Carroll and in her own complaint she said numerous criminal laws were violated it was forcible rape the jury refused to find uh it was forcible rape her too she said it was sexual assault in violation of criminal law the jury found it was sexual assault she also said it was forced and unwanted contact also in violation of New York criminal law and the jury did not have to go on to that next to lower the bar because they found out there was sexual abuse and I think besides what Andrew said about that, it was easier for the jury to corroborate, it might also reflect a little bit of compromise, there might have been some of the jurors who believed there was penetration and there was rape and another number that said well I'm not sure about that, but I'm sure there was, you know, sexual assault, offensive sexual touching that maybe didn't involve penetration and all of that nine was unanimous as required in federal court even in a civil case, but it could have been that they reached that compromise, we won't know unless of course someone talks to the jury and some of the jurors might be willing to talk about how they decided this, but either way it's very significant because again we were talking about a woman coming in and telling these intimate details of how she was sexually abused and she was telling them about a person who was one of the most powerful. people in the country, the former president of the United States required an incredible amount of courage and it's something that she

only

said she really started to think about after the metoo movement after women started to feel more empowered to go ahead and be public about things that had been kept private in some cases where years are in Ms.

Carol's case, even for decades because, it's not okay to do this, even when you're a star, Lisa, we talk a lot about the strategy, Joe Takapina's strategy, um, was not to show any empathy. for Eugene Carroll whatever he had been through was to hit her um to attack her for not acting like he believed um or seemed to act like he believed that a rape victim should act that every victim should scream and because she didn't she was not a true rape victim the jury does not seem to have bought the other very important pillars that were on trial may a jury all these years later except one story that is told to some contemporary accounts of friends when no one went to the police on that moment.

I know you wrote a thread early last week about that. What do you think about what we understand today? That maybe we didn't know yesterday. yesterday he made such an important point yesterday and he said that mr takapina wants you to believe that there is such a thing as a perfect rape victim right perfect rape victim yells a perfect rape victim no laughs a perfect great victim reports in real time and a perfect The rape victim does not complain and is relatively miserable for the rest of her life. He never achieves professional success again. He never

finds

personal happiness.

Moving on, we don't say they didn't love that person at all, we don't think we love that person any less, we understand that both can be true and the same is true for rape victims. truth can be strange and it's just fiction that's neat and tidy so what you saw in this verdict Nicole I think is a total repudiation of that Trope that Tacopino Joe was bringing up all the reasons not to believe that E.G and Carol this jury is saying we are not going to believe that yes, she was not perfect, she does not remember the date, she does not even remember the year, she did not report in real time, it took her more than 20 years to talk about it and maybe even longer to process that what she was experiencing was trauma, and yet we believe her, we believe she was sexually assaulted, we believe Donald Trump smeared her, and we believe she was harmed by it.

Just Nicole I want to go back to one thing you said this was essentially a confession that's exactly what Ferrara called it yesterday in rebuttal she said I've been in my share of locker rooms in my life and it wasn't locker room talk this was fashion pure and simple and I think that had a lot of impact with this jury of six men and

three

women also foreigners