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Trump ‘In Fact Did Exactly That’, But Reporters Can’t Say So
U.S. journalists have a big problem, and courts can’t help them
In June 2019, while Donald Trump was president, E. Jean Carroll alleged in New York magazine that Trump had sexually assaulted her in the mid-’90s in a New York City department store dressing room. Trump issued an official government statement denying the accusation, alleging that Carroll was out for politics or profit. Carroll sued him for defamation that November.
In October 2022, Trump posted to social media: “I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is… it never happened… E. Jean Carroll is not telling the truth.” Carroll sued him again a month later.
Those two lawsuits comprise E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump.
A jury considering the second lawsuit in May 2023 found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.
Two months later, the judge clarified that the acts of “sexual abuse” for which Trump was found liable can be described as “rape” — if not according to the narrow definition of the New York Penal Law, then at least “as many people commonly understand the word.”
