Should Trump decide not to attend, there will be a price to pay, as it opens the door for an argument to the jury: By staying away, not only is Trump conceding he has no defense to the suit, but he is also insulting both the process and the jurors themselves, a position no litigant would want to be in. Not surprisingly, Roberta Kaplan has already made it clear that her client will be there. Judge Kaplan, citing the need to prepare necessary security if Trump attends, gave both parties until April 20 to let the court know if the principals will be attending. Defendants in civil cases are usually not required to appear for trial, and given the painful realities involved, this may well be the path the former president chooses.
Perhaps he cares little enough about the outcome of the Carroll case to stay at Mar-a-Lago while it is being tried. Given the existing New York County false records criminal case that Alvin Bragg is bringing, and the looming and even more significant indictments expected to be filed in Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, Georgia, the last thing Donald Trump needs is yet another legal threat forcing him from his Florida sanctuary. These will not be idle threats the judge has a remarkable record of keeping a tight rein on lawyers appearing before him. A colleague with a great deal of experience with Judge Kaplan and who has also worked with Tacopina predicted to me that Judge Kaplan will raise the prospect of holding Tacopina in contempt more than once during the trial. Judge Kaplan is a seasoned and highly regarded judge whose strict, no-nonsense approach will be much more in sync with Roberta Kaplan than Joe Tacopina. If the strength of the evidence and the uneven lawyer-to-lawyer matchups are not problematic enough for Trump, the federal judge presiding over the case is Lewis Kaplan, who is surely from the Trump perspective among the least favorable Southern District judges to preside over this case. Especially in a case where a woman has accused a man of physically brutalizing her, the contrast between Tacopina’s alpha-male persona and Kaplan’s reasonable professionalism will only reinforce Carroll’s claims. Making the courtroom battle even more unfavorable for Trump will be Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan, an experienced, well-regarded civil rights and commercial litigator known for her reasoned demeanor and practical approach. Finally, Judge Kaplan has allowed into evidence certain of Trump’s prior assaultive conduct toward women, including the infamous Access Hollywood tape. There is also unidentified male DNA on the dress she was wearing when the incident occurred. In addition, there are a number of witnesses whom Carroll had contemporaneously told about the incident who will corroborate her story. First, based upon Carroll’s public interviews, she appears to be an effective advocate who should be a sympathetic witness on her own behalf. The evidence against the former president in the public record seems strong. The claim was allowed to be filed so many years after the alleged assault because of a relatively new law that allows sexual assault victims to file charges after the applicable statute of limitations had otherwise expired. With some of the libel allegations still under appellate review, Carroll’s assault complaint is now set for trial.
Carroll had filed separate defamation and assault lawsuits against him based on the claim that he raped her in her dressing room at the Fifth Avenue department store Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. Trump now faces the immediate prospect of a face-to-face courtroom battle with a woman he described as a “nut job” who “enjoyed” being sexually assaulted.
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