Why Donald Trump’s defeat in court matters
The sexual-assault verdict is the first major legal judgment against him
“DOES ANYBODY BELIEVE that I would take a then almost 60-year-old woman that I didn’t know [into a department-store dressing room] and…her,” Donald Trump asked his followers on Truth Social, a social-media platform, on April 26th. On May 9th a New York jury said that, actually, yes they mostly did.
In a civil case E. Jean Carroll, a writer, accused Mr Trump of raping her in a Manhattan department store over 25 years ago. A federal jury unanimously found it was more likely than not (the evidentiary standard for a civil trial) that Mr Trump sexually abused her and later defamed her when denying her allegations. For this, they said that Mr Trump must pay Ms Carroll $5m. The jury did not go as far as agreeing that the assault constituted rape.
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