Jury Determines Trump Should Pay $83.3M in Carroll Defamation Case

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Facts

• A federal grand jury determined Friday that former Pres. Donald Trump should pay $83.3M to E. Jean Carroll for defamatory statements made in 2019. This total is over eight times what Carroll had asked for and includes $18.3M in compensatory damages and $65M in punitive damages.¹
• Last year, Trump was found to have sexually assaulted Carroll in the 1990s before defaming her by his public denial of the event.²
• Taking the witness stand, Trump confirmed that he had heard his deposition played in court, said he stood by his previous statements, and denied he ever threatened Carroll in his social media posts. Trump's attempts to answer beyond the yes/no limit imposed on him by the court were removed from the record by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan.³
• The judge removed Trump's claim that Carroll had 'said something that [he] considered a false accusation' and that he had 'just wanted to defend myself, my family and frankly, the presidency.'⁴
• Kaplan imposed the restrictions because the only purpose of this trial is to determine how much Trump must pay Carroll in damages.⁴
• Carroll, who was awarded $5M by a jury in a related case in May, was seeking an additional $10M for Trump's repeated denials of her accusations. The former president has publicly denied the sexual assault on social media, during a CNN interview, in news conferences, and during his presidential campaign.⁵

Sources: ¹CNN, ²Wsj.com, ³FOX News, ⁴BBC News and ⁵New York Times.

Narratives

• Anti-Trump narrative, as provided by The New Republic. Trump's arrogance and unapologetic behavior led to him having to pay far more in damages than what Carroll was seeking. In other cases currently being adjudicated, Trump has claimed he's worth more than the prosecutor's claim, so it's no surprise Carroll saw a much larger sum in the end.
• Pro-Trump narrative, as provided by Daily Wire. Kaplan's courtroom rules were not worthy of Trump's respect, considering the baseless accusations the judge has allowed Carroll to throw Trump's way. Like many people before during Trump's time as a prominent public figure, Carroll and Kaplan are trying to destroy Trump for political reasons.

Predictions