Former President Donald Trump released a video early Friday calling E. Jean Carroll’s defamation against him a “sham” and “disgrace to our country.”
It was his closing argument of sorts hours before attorneys formally summed up the case in a Manhattan courtroom.
Following summations Friday, a nine-person jury will decide whether Ms. Carroll is entitled to damages over 2019 comments in which Mr. Trump rejected her claim that he raped her in a department store dressing room in 1996, declaring: “She’s not my type.”
“I don’t know who this woman is, I don’t know who she is, where she came from,” Mr. Trump said Friday on Truth Social. “We cannot let our country go into this abyss.”
At a previous trial, a jury awarded her $5 million after finding Mr. Trump liable for sex abuse and defamation claims related to her claims and the former president’s comments from 2022.
The jurors rejected Ms. Carroll’s claim that Mr. Trump raped her.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the liability finding from the first trial would carry over to the second trial, so jurors need only determine how much Mr. Trump must pay.
Mr. Trump concluded the testimony phase Thursday by taking the witness stand for less than five minutes. He said he “just wanted to defend myself” when he criticized Ms. Carroll in 2019 for making the rape accusation in a magazine article.
Judge Kaplan strictly limited what Mr. Trump could say on the witness stand because the previous trial found him liable.
It is unclear what role, if any, Mr. Trump will try to play Friday. He gave a lengthy speech to the court during closing arguments in a separate New York civil trial on claims his real estate company submitted fraudulent financial statements to gain favorable terms on loans and insurance.
The judge in that case let him speak for several minutes before cutting Mr. Trump off.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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