USA, JANUARY 17: Donald Trump went straight from his victory in Republican Iowa caucuses to a New York courtroom Tuesday for the start of a defamation trial brought by writer E. Jean Carroll after an earlier jury found he has sexually assaulted her in 1990s.
Trump is accused of rape and charged with defamation by E. Jean Carroll who is seeking USD10 million in damages.
The 80-year-old author alleged that Trump defamed her in 2019 when he served as president.
This wasn’t the first case the pair has been associated with as Caroll had won last year when another New York jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Caroll in a department store dressing room in 1996 and subsequently defaming her in 2022 when he called her ‘con’.
Caroll was awarded USD 5 million in damages.
Addressing supporters at a rally in New Hampshire before attending the court proceeding this morning, Trump said he planned to attend daily court proceedings in the ‘phony” case over the next several days, while continuing campaigning.
“I go back to New York tonight and then I’m gonna go to one of these phony cases tonight where we have tomorrow morning early, nice and early.
“I go to a Biden witch hunt and then I come here in the afternoon and I stop and we make speeches and we get your votes,” he said at a rally.
At the rally, Trump declared that nobody had to do this before, criticising the individuals as disgraceful to the country.
He expressed a desire to just leave and confidently asserted that they would achieve victory on Tuesday, possibly surpassing the previous night’s success in Iowa.
Trump’s victory Monday in the Iowa caucuses surprised no one, confirming his grip on the Republican Party and offering clues about the campaign ahead.
Christian conservatives were initially skeptical of Trump, who is plagued by sexual assault accusations and allegations of a tryst with a porn star.
But they warmed to the tycoon since three of his Supreme Court picks spearheaded the bench’s anti-abortion moves. – TVS
