‘Access Hollywood’ tape of Trump won’t be shown to jury at defamation trial, lawyer says
A lawyer for a writer who says Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s and then defamed her while he was president in 2019 said Saturday that the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape and two women who accused Trump of abuse will not be brought before a jury in New York take into account defamation damages.
The revelation from attorney Roberta Kaplan, who represents advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, means the Republican front-runner in this year’s presidential race could testify in Manhattan federal court as soon as Monday, a day before the New Hampshire primary.
The jury is considering whether Trump owes Carroll more than the $5 million she was awarded last spring by another jury that concluded Trump sexually assaulted Carroll but did not rape Carroll in the locker room of a luxury hotel in the spring of 1996 department store in Manhattan and then discredited her. October 2022.
Trump attended the trial for two of the first three days but did not skip it until Thursday, when he attended his mother-in-law’s funeral in Florida.
Kaplan said in a letter to the judge late Saturday that she would not show jurors the 2005 tape in which Trump is caught on a hot microphone speaking disparagingly about women to keep the issues in the trial “focused.”
For the same reason, she said she will not call two other Trump accusers as witnesses: Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds.
Both women testified during the trial that ended last May. Leeds, a former stockbroker, said Trump abruptly groped her against her will during an airline flight in the 1970s, while Stoynoff, a writer, said Trump forcibly kissed her against her will while she interviewed him for an article from 2005.
Kaplan noted that Trump’s lawyers had said he had the right to testify about the “Access Hollywood” tape and the Stoynoff and Leeds allegations, although he wouldn’t be if not for Carroll’s lawyers in the case. case would be introduced.
The judge in the case has instructed the jury that it must accept last year’s jury findings, and so the evidence has focused almost exclusively on the harm done to Carroll by Trump’s continued claims that he never assaulted her and don’t know her and that she is lying.
Trump, 77, has denied her claims during campaign stops, on social media and at a news conference over the past week. And he continues to allege that the 80-year-old Carroll made false claims against him to sell the 2019 memoir in which she revealed the allegations for the first time publicly and for political reasons.
The judge has severely limited the topics Trump can testify about when he takes the witness stand, and Carrol’s lawyers have likely decided to limit the introduction of more evidence to prevent Trump from straying into topics like what he says are many false claims against him .
However, Kaplan said she plans to show jury statements Trump has made since her client finished testifying in the case on Thursday.
Kaplan said Trump said he plans to repeat his claims that he never assaulted Carroll and does not know her “a thousand times.”
“Such statements,” she wrote, “are of course relevant to the issue of damages because they illustrate that the Defendant has no intention of ceasing his smear campaign against Ms. Carroll, even in the face of legal proceedings establishing his liability for the defamation of her has been dealt with.”
A lawyer for Trump did not return a request for comment on Kaplan’s letter on Saturday evening.