Former President Donald Trump could testify as early as Thursday in the second defamation damages trial brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll.
The trial has been twice delayed this week — first after a juror and one of Trump’s attorneys reported illnesses on Monday, and again for the New Hampshire primary election on Tuesday.
While Trump, the Republican front-runner for the 2024 presidential nomination, is not required to show up to trial, he has indicated he would testify in his defense. He appeared ready to take the stand Monday, but Judge Lewis Kaplan paused the proceedings after hearing about the illnesses.
Carroll, who sued Trump for defaming her by calling her rape allegations a “hoax” and “pure fiction,” is expected to wrap up her case by midday Thursday.
Trump is listed as one of two witnesses for the defense.
The first case Carroll brought against Trump took place last year after she alleged that he raped her in a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s and then defamed her by calling her claims a “con job” after he left the White House. A jury found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation and awarded her $5 million, though Trump is appealing the verdict.
In the current case, Trump has been found liable for defaming Carroll. The nine-person New York jury’s only decision will be to determine how much money Trump will be forced to pay Carroll for comments he made about her while he was in the White House and had access to arguably the world’s largest microphone. She is asking for more than $10 million.
Carroll told jurors that Trump destroyed her reputation with his outsized denials and insults about the sexual assault.
Northwestern sociology professor Ashlee Humphreys testified that the reputational harm Trump inflicted was between $7.2 million and $12.1 million.
Humphreys, who was contracted to analyze the reach of Trump’s statements and assess the damage, estimated that about 25 million people saw and were receptive to Trump’s comments about Carroll.
Someone would need to see corrective messaging as many as seven times to change their minds about Carroll, Humphreys testified, adding that the damage inflicted was severe and the cost to repair it would be considerable.
Humphreys also testified in Carroll’s first defamation case against Trump and served as an expert in former Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s defamation case. In that case, a jury awarded two Georgia election workers Giuliani defamed $148 million last month. A few weeks after the ruling, Giuliani filed for bankruptcy.
Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, took a few jabs at her famous uncle on social media this week, writing that he should cut Carroll a blank check for defaming her and then lying about it on camera.
Specifically, Mary Trump, the daughter of Trump’s older brother Fred Trump Jr., called out the former president for comments he made during a recent campaign stop.
“In just a span of 13 minutes today, Donald attacked E. Jean Carroll an incredible 42 times on Truth Social — including the falsehood that Judge Lewis Kaplan was a Democratic operative,” she wrote on her Substack. “But it gets even worse for Donald. In remarks caught on camera, he lied about her again. This will almost certainly cost him.
“At this point, the judge should just order Donald to write E. Jean a blank check,” she added.
During a campaign rally in New Hampshire before Tuesday’s election, Trump said Carroll’s claims were a “totally fabricated story.”
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Not only did Mary Trump post a clip of her uncle making those comments, but she also wrote, “Donald can’t plausibly deny he made this claim, because I’ve saved the receipts.”
She also pointed to a similar claim he made last week, which Carroll’s legal team noted and entered into evidence.
