Closing arguments begin in E. Jean Carroll case: ‘Trump is a witness against himself’
Closing arguments began Monday in writer E. Jean Carroll’s federal civil trial against Donald Trump — with the former president absent from the proceedings.
“He didn’t even bother to show up here in person,” Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said of Trump.
“In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she said. “He knows what he did. He knows that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll.”
The trial opened late last month, and though Trump said at one point that he would not attend, he said at another that he “probably” would do so.
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A judge had given Trump a three-day window over the weekend to decide whether to testify during the trial, but the Sunday evening deadline passed without the former president coming forward.
Carroll has accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City in the 1990s and is suing for battery and defamation. She claims the former president’s denial of the allegations defamed her.
During closing arguments, Carroll’s legal team also replayed the 2005 “Access Hollywood” video which shows Trump saying celebrities can grab women by the genitals without consent.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan — no relation to attorney Roberta Kaplan — said jurors would begin deliberations Tuesday.
The Associated Press contributed.
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