Traditionally, after a presidential candidate wins the Iowa caucuses, he or she heads to New Hampshire, hoping to parlay one victory into another. And while Donald Trump did, in fact, headline an event in the Granite State the day after his success in Iowa, as NBC News reported, he made one other notable stop in between.
Former President Donald Trump attended his defamation damages trial in New York on Tuesday, sitting roughly 10 feet away from E. Jean Carroll, the writer whom a civil jury last year said he was responsible for sexually abusing in the 1990s. Trump was in the courtroom for jury selection but left before opening statements began to go to a campaign rally in New Hampshire.
The Republican was not, for example, in the room when Carroll attorney Shawn Crowley told the newly seated jurors that Trump upended the plaintiff’s life and that they needed to return a verdict large enough to “make him stop” targeting her.
The former president “didn’t just deny the assault … he went much, much further,” Crowley added as the proceedings got underway. “He said he had no idea who she was. He accused her of lying and making up a story to make money and to advance some political conspiracy against him. And he threatened her. He said she should pay dearly for speaking out against him.”
Readers will be forgiven for feeling a sense of déjà vu. After all, as regular readers know, it was last year when the writer won a civil case against the former president: A jury found the Republican liable for sexually abusing Carroll, and jurors awarded the writer $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims.
The jury did not find the defendant liable for rape, though a judge later concluded that the former president, for all intents and purposes, “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
This was not, however, the final word on the subject. Trump is facing a second defamation trial, stemming from comments he made about Carroll in 2019. The case is now underway in New York.
It’s against this backdrop that the former president appears wholly unable to help himself.
Two weeks ago, over the span of roughly a half-hour, Trump used his social media platform to go after Carroll with 31 separate items. The same afternoon, he went after Carroll again during an event in Iowa.
A few hours later, he published 40 additional items to his platform, many of which featured this text: “Except for a Fraudulent Case against me, I had no idea who E. Jean Carroll was. She called her African American Husband an ‘ape,’ and named her Cat ‘Vagina.’ Look at her Tweets, Stories, and the CNN Interview about her. The Judge on the Case is another Highly Partisan Clinton-Appointed Friend. He should have recused himself long ago!” Roughly 24 hours ago, shortly before the new trial got underway, the Republican returned to his platform, publishing a bizarre and conspiratorial message about the case, which read in part, “After a historic win in Iowa, I am going to the Biden encouraged Witch Hunt in Lower Manhattan to fight against a FAKE Case from a woman I have never met, seen, or touched (Celebrity Lines don’t count!). … It is a giant Election Interference Scam, pushed and financed by political operatives. I had no idea who this woman was. PURE FICTION!” This was one of 31 anti-Carroll items he published the morning of the trial, one of which added, “Can you believe I have to defend myself against this woman’s fake story?!” In other words, in a civil case intended to get Trump to stop going after Carroll, the defendant is going out of his way to make clear to everyone that he does not want to stop going after Carroll. The writer will reportedly take the stand in a few hours. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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