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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. In a New York courtroom right now, there's an unusual intersection of narratives about our world where the neverending spectacle of trying to hold Donald Trump accountable for something, anything that he's done outside the law. That's one narrative meets a much more widespread social issue, justice for survivors of sexual assault. Now, last year, the New York State Legislature, if you don't already know this past and Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act, which gives adult survivors of sexual assault from past decades, a new one-year window in which to press charges against their alleged abusers.

That is, it's expanded the statute of limitations on old sexual assault cases for one year. It was modeled after the state's Child Victims Act, which had a one-year window that began in 2019, and more than 11,000 suits from what I read, were filed during that look-out window. An indication of how much sexual assault goes unreported at the time it occurs. Now, the Adult Survivors Act window began on Thanksgiving of last year, so we're approaching the halfway mark.

One of those old allegations that someone claiming to be a victim brought forward was this accusation by former advice columnist for Elle Magazine, E. Jean Carroll that Donald Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. The trial began yesterday with opening arguments, Carroll was also accusing Trump of defamation for the way he responded publicly to her claims, we'll get into that.

We'll talk about day one of E. Jean Carroll versus Donald J. Trump's opening arguments were yesterday, but also about the context, the Adult Survivors Act, and the larger role it's playing for justice as a whole and for individual victims here in New York. My guest to help us out with this is Jane Manning, director of the Women's Equal Justice Project, which helps sexual assault and domestic abuse survivors navigate the legal system individually, and works for systemic reform. She's also a former sex crimes prosecutor. Jane, it's good to have you on again, welcome back to WNYC.

Jane Manning: Thank you so much, Brian, good to be here.

Brian Lehrer: I think many news organizations are covering the Carroll versus Trump trial, because it's Donald Trump, and we will talk about it too in detail in our conversation. Also, about the context of what else is happening under this law. Would you start by reminding our listeners, what the Adult Survivors Act actually does and why you think it's important or fair to suspend the statute of limitations for a year in this way?

Jane Manning: The Adult Survivors Act is a law that was passed last year, and exactly as you said, it took effect last November and it runs until this coming November. It opens a one-year window of opportunity for survivors of sexual assault to bring a civil lawsuit, not a criminal case, a civil lawsuit against the perpetrator, seeking civil damages and other types of civil relief. This law was passed last spring after years of work and lobbying by survivors of sexual assault and their allies.

One of the most I would say fearless and effective survivor leaders in that effort was a woman you've had on your show Brian, and that is Marissa Hoechstetter. She was one of the many women who were abused by a serial predator who was an OBGYN named Robert Hadden. Evelyn Yang, who was the wife of Andrew Yang was another survivor of that predator. They banded together with other survivors and worked tirelessly in Albany to overcome the inertia and obstacles that we often face. Joint to get justice for survivors in Albany, and last spring, they won.

The Adult Survivors Act was passed by the New York State Legislature, it opens that one-year window, and again, that window began last Thanksgiving, it lasts until this coming November. Interestingly enough, E. Jean Carroll's case was the very first lawsuit to be filed under the Adult Survivors Act.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. As I mentioned in the intro, New York had its lookback window for child sexual abuse survivors just a few years ago, with what I read, that stat that I cited, being more than 11,000 cases being brought during that one-year period. How would you describe how that went in terms of justice served, even though it was justice delayed?

Jane Manning: I think having that opportunity to seek civil accountability was really important to victims of child sexual abuse. I think it probably doesn't need a lot of explanation to understand why it is hard for a young person who has been sexually abused at a really vulnerable age. Why that person is probably going to need time to come to terms with what happened to them and to heal to the extent that they can summon the strength to confront an abuser in court.

The Child Victims Act opened an opportunity that I think was a really important one for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. You asked in your previous question, why it would be fair to do this for adult survivors of sexual assault. I think the answer to that is, all survivors of sexual assault face obstacles to seeking recourse through the court system that are unique to sexual assault, or at least heightened in cases of sexual assault.

Our culture for a long time has been primed to disbelieve women and all people who have been sexually assaulted, it is primed to blame someone for sexual assault. At the same time to shame that person, even while disbelieving them to shame them and make them feel like they're somehow damaged, and there's something wrong with them. E. Jean Carroll talked about all these things when she talked about why she didn't come forward in cases of sexual assault.

I didn't think I'd be believed, and I thought Donald Trump would go after me and publicly shame me and I would be the one whose life was destroyed. We've begun with the MeToo Movement to change that culture of disbelieving and blaming and shaming survivors, we've begun. I wouldn't say we're all the way there but we've gotten far enough to understand that for many years, survivors were effectively silenced by those aspects of our culture. Now that we are beginning to open our ears to what survivors have to say, we were able to get the legislature to recognize that we should open our courts as well.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we're talking about the sexual assault and defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump that began yesterday. We will get into the details of that case, I promise, but also more broadly, and I really wanted to put it into this context, about the one-year window that we're in the middle of in New York State that allows victims of past adult sexual assault to file new charges, the Adult Survivors Act suspending for a year the statute of limitations.

We can take calls on both tracks. Is anyone listening right now, filing suit against someone and yourself under the Act, we invite you to tell your story if you are. If you want to talk publicly about it 212-433-WNYC, or maybe any lawyer listening now representing such a client or defendant, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or any questions about this Carroll versus Trump case, specifically. Your calls are welcome now at 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, for Jane Manning, director of the Women's Equal Justice Project, and a former sex crimes prosecutor.

We'll get into the details of Carroll versus Trump, but first I want to give you an opportunity to put that case in a larger perspective, in terms of what that case itself might mean to other survivors. Maybe you saw the op-ed in the New York Times yesterday by Deborah Tuerkheimer, a professor of law at Northwestern University, and author of the book Credible: Why We Doubt Accusers and Protect Abusers. She argued that this case, the opposite, I admit of what I first thought, despite its celebrity uniqueness, and I thought, okay, this is another Trump thing. It doesn't really relate to what women in more ordinary circumstances are going through.

She argued this case is among the most significant developments of the post-MeToo era, and that the outcome will take on heightened significance, because in part, Trump has embraced the role of a vendor on behalf of men accused of sexual misconduct. I'm curious if you agree that there's a lot at stake here for more that's below the public's radar, those cases of sexual assault, past or future.

Jane Manning: Trump hasn't just embraced the role of men accused of sexual assault. Donald Trump has embraced the role of men who commit sexual assault. Just listen to the Access Hollywood tape. He is bragging about the things he does to women without their consent, forcibly kissing them without their consent. Rubbing them by their intimate body parts without their consent.

He's not bragging on that tape about how I've evaded wrongful accusations. He's bragging about how he's done it and gotten away with it. Among the many reasons why so many Americans were devastated when Donald Trump was elected president, there was absolutely a particular anguish that women experienced after Donald Trump's election. The idea that a man who could boast about sexually assaulting women and get elected president of the United States nonetheless, was such a devastating message about how women are still viewed in our country.

How women are still degraded in our country, and how powerful men are still seen as having the right to mistreat us as they will. After all these years of seeing Donald Trump evade the law in so many ways, his fraudulent business practices, his attempts to overturn the election, his encouragement of a violent cue against the United States government.

After all these years of wondering whether Donald Trump will ever be held accountable by anyone, it would be such poetic justice if the first person to hold this man accountable in court for his actions was E. Jean Carroll, a woman who had been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.

It would be so meaningful for her. It would be so meaningful for the 26 women who have come forward and reported that they too were sexually assaulted and abused by Donald Trump. It would be meaningful for every self-respecting woman in the United States of America and every man who is our ally.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call from Alison in Brooklyn. Alison Turkos, who I believe has been a guest on the show at one point talking about the Adult Survivors Act. Alison, you're on WNYC today. Thank you for calling in.

Alison: Thank you for having me. Hi, Jane, you and I have worked together in the past.

Jane Manning: Hi, Alison.

Alison: Hi, there's just a few things that I want to note on this. Sorry, I'm driving. The first thing that I want to note is that this case is both wonderful. Obviously, I am someone who worked exhaustively on the Adult Survivors Act, and I'm so grateful that E. Jean is taking advantage of this law. It's really wonderful, obviously, that we opened access to the criminal court system but there are many people who may not be able to file a suit or may not have the capacity or the resources to file a suit. I just want to really highlight and lift up that there are many accesses and pathways to justice and healing.

For some people that might involve the criminal legal system. For some people that might involve the civil legal system. What's right for one survivor and victim may not be right for others. I just really think it's important just that we lift that up and center that and obviously this lawsuit is what is right for E. Jean. I think it's also just really important to remember for everyone who's listening and to really share this with everyone else in your lives, that the survivors and victims in your lives are listening to you and to remember that E. Jean is not the person who is on trial here, but it is Donald Trump.

It's really important to center the survivors and victims in your life and to remember that E. Jean is not a person who perpetrated harm. It is not her credibility that is on trial and so if you are consuming news, or if you're in a public space, to remember that there are survivors and victims everywhere around you, and that we need to really center trusting and believing survivors. Then the last thing that I'll say is just that you cannot hold people accountable.

Being accountable is a voluntary act. I know that we're here talking about this law that I was obviously instrumental in but the idea that we talk so much about holding people accountable, but we can't hold someone accountable unless they voluntarily want to be held accountable. Ideally, I hope that that's a shift that we see happen soon but within the court system, Donald Trump will potentially have to pay a settlement or that's what the jury may decide, but just to remember that I really hope that we see a shift to people saying I'm ready to be held accountable. This is the harm that I perpetrated and I'm ready to have these conversations.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. I don't know how many men who perpetrated sexual violence would ever be ready to do that, but what do you think, Jane?

Jane Manning: I think Alison makes a number of great points. When we talk about what I refer to as holding Donald Trump accountable, Alison's right. We're really talking about requiring him to experience consequences for his actions. Would a man like Donald Trump ever accept accountability voluntarily for his actions? I really doubt it and that's why we do need well-functioning pathways to justice, both civil and criminal that survivors can access. Alison is exactly right when she says that the civil justice system is not available to all survivors. Civil litigation costs an enormous amount of money.

That money has to come from somewhere and effectively what that means is that it is almost impossible to sue a rapist civilly unless either the victim has very significant financial resources, enough to pay out-of-pocket for legal fees, or she can get a law firm to take the case on a contingency basis, which is very unlikely to happen unless the perpetrator has very significant resources. People might hear that and say, oh, that's good. That means we'll be holding rich men accountable. Well, guess what? The fact is that most sexual assaults happen between people of similar class and race backgrounds.

If you are limiting access to justice for people whose perpetrators have a lot of money, that effectively means that a lot of lower-income women are probably going to be denied justice against their perpetrators. What does that mean? We need really good access to civil remedies and some of that means amending the statute of limitations that will be in effect after the Adult Survivors Act expires. It also means it's a call to my colleagues in the legal profession to make more pro bono representation available to women who want to bring these suits. That said, civil recourse can't be the only form of justice available to survivors.

We also need a robust and well-functioning criminal justice system for a couple of reasons. The main one being some perpetrators are simply too dangerous and too incorrigible to be addressed simply by the civil justice system. We need a well-functioning criminal justice system as well. As you and I had discussed on your show before, we're a long way from having that. Survivors like Alison have worked tirely on both fronts and she's absolutely right that for the rest of us who don't identify as survivors, it is very important to keep these issues front and center and realize that it's up to all of us to keep working, to make the justice system better for all of us.

Brian Lehrer: Alison, thank you for your call. Do you have any numbers, Jane, on how many adult Survivor Act cases have actually been filed during these five months so far that the lookback window has been open?

Jane Manning: Brian, the number is surprisingly low. As of last report, it was about 70 cases that had been filed under the Adult Survivors Act.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, that's really low.

Jane Manning: It's pretty low and I think that this reflects a couple of things. First, it should give comfort to those who told us that we couldn't pass the Adult Survivors Act because it would open the floodgates to a torrent of frivolous litigation. Well, it hasn't opened floodgates at all, quite the opposite of that. I think it also reflects some of the barriers to seeking justice through the civil process, the cost barriers in particular, as I just discussed. It may also reflect the fact that there may be a lot of survivors out there in New York State who may not know about the Adult Survivors Act.

I think you're doing a real service, Brian, by taking this opportunity to highlight it. There are a lot of great civil practitioners out there. You may have to make 5 phone calls, you may have to make 10 phone calls before you find a civil lawyer who will take your case and who makes you feel comfortable but if you know that you have a meritorious case for sexual assault, it may be worth a try to reach out to civil attorneys to see if you can get someone to represent you in bringing a claim.

Brian Lehrer: All right, so in this first half of the segment, we have put E. Jean Carroll V. Donald J. Trump in the context of the larger Adult Survivors Act in New York State and what that means to people in more ordinary circumstances. When we come back from a one-minute break, we will get into the specifics of this case, including the opening arguments from each side yesterday. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We're talking about the E. Jean Carroll vs Donald J. Trump rape and defamation civil suit with Jane Manning, a former sex crimes prosecutor. Let's get into the case now that we've talked about the context of the one-year lookback window law in which it exists. As The New York Times describes Carroll's lawyer Shawn Crowley's opening argument yesterday, it says Ms. Crowley took the jury through a meticulous account of how Ms. Carroll's chance encounter with Mr. Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan, began with humor and friendly teasing.

She had met him once before and was leaving the store as he was arriving. He asked her for help picking out a gift for a woman. She agreed, thinking it would make for a funny story. Ms. Crowley said. She was a columnist so perhaps a funny story for Elle magazine. They made their way up the escalator to the lingerie department. Why is there always an escalator when Donald Trump is involved, but anyway? To the lingerie department on the sixth floor, which was unattended at that hour, Ms. Crowley said adding that Mr. Trump eventually maneuvered Ms. Carroll into a dressing room and slammed her against a wall.

He pressed his lips against her, Ms. Crowley said. She said Mr. Trump then pulled down Miss Carroll's tights and sexually assaulted her. Ms. Carroll ultimately broke free and fled from the store. That's the time's account of some of the opening arguments by her lawyer. Then The Times account says Mr. Trump's lawyer Joseph Tacopina followed with an aggressive attack on Ms. Carroll contending that her account was untrue and accusing her of exploiting her story for personal gain.

"She became a celebrity and loved every minute of it," Mr. Tacopina said. Saw that from The Times and she did reveal this in a book that she published in 2019. Jane, from a legal standpoint, how much Ms. Carroll convinced the jury that her version of events is true, and Trump's denial is false because Trump, like anybody else is innocent until proven guilty.

Jane Manning: In a civil case, E. Jean Carroll's burden is substantially lower than it would be in a criminal case. In a criminal case, of course, it's beyond a reasonable doubt. In a civil case, E. Jean Carroll has to prevail only by a preponderance of the evidence, meaning that the jury has to think it's more likely than not that Donald Trump committed the acts that E. Jean Carroll describes. In their opening statements, both attorneys I think gave us a real view of what they think are the strengths and weaknesses of their cases.

1. Jean Carroll's attorney opened with a really powerhouse opening statement. Early on, she tried to do what good prosecutors do, but in this case, the plaintiff who is the party with the burden of proof also wants to do, which is get the jury to look at the evidence as a whole. Right from the start, E. Jean Carroll's attorney talked a little bit about E. Jean, her background, who she is as a person, and then quickly let the jury know about some of the other witnesses they will be hearing from, so the two women E. Jean Carroll confided in soon after the assault, and the two witnesses who will be testifying that they experienced similar assaults by Donald Trump and of course, also they have the Access Hollywood case.

These witnesses are Uber important to E. Jean Carroll's case, it's no accident that her lawyer Shawn Crowley brought them into the conversation early on in the opening statement.

Crowley also addressed a couple of the possible challenges that she might see in that case, including that long period of time where E. Jean Carroll did not report the rape. Brian, I think that the Me Too movement has probably done a lot to shed light on the reasons why rape survivors often remain silent, but they are not taking any chances in this trial. They're going to call an expert witness to talk about those things.

Finally, Shawn Crowley dropped an interesting little piece of information, which is that they will be calling a former assistant manager at Bergdorf Goodman, who will talk about some of the store's operations. That I think anticipates what some of the arguments are going to be from the defense which are going to say it's implausible that there was no one else in the dressing room. It's implausible that it could have happened this way. They're going to bring on Assistant Manager from Bergdorf Goodman to talk about the store operations.

I think it's going to be really interesting to see what they found there. It sure reflects some very meticulous preparation and investigation by E. Jean Carroll's team. Actually one more thing I'll just say. At the end of her opening statement, Shawn Crowley showed a photo that probably a lot of have seen showing E. Jean Carroll meeting Donald Trump. E. Jean was with her then-husband and Donald Trump was with his then-wife, Ivana Trump. That photo shows two things that go directly against Donald Trump's statements that E. Jean Carroll is suing him for. He said she's a hoaxer. He says I never met her. He's saying she's not my type.

In that photo, you can clearly see that they've met and that it's a really friendly encounter between the two of them. You also see E. Jean Carroll, in her younger days as a glamorous and really strikingly pretty and attractive and gregarious looking blonde and bearing more than a passing resemblance to two women that Donald Trump married, Ivana Trump and of course, Marla Maples to the point where when Donald Trump was shown a photo of a young E. Jean Carroll in his deposition, he looked at it and said, "Yes, that's my ex-wife, Marla Maples."

Brian Lehrer: Oh, no. Really? I didn't know that.

Jane Manning: He really did that. It really happened. From the opening statements--

Brian Lehrer: I guess she's his type.

Jane Manning: Yes, I guess.

Brian Lehrer: Which goes to his credibility if that's part of his defense, even though it's just a smear.

Jane Manning: Precisely. In her opening statement, E. Jean Carroll's attorney has already cast doubt on two of Donald Trump's three allegedly defamatory lies. She has proven that at least two of those statements are demonstrably false, right from the opening statement.

Brian Lehrer: We know that Trump has a history of denying that he knows people who he actually knows or has opinions about people who he actually has opinions about. When he was running in 2016 he was asked if he would condemn David Duke, the former Klan leader and he said, "I don't know anything about David Duke." Then people revealed that he had condemned David Duke in the past explicitly, but apparently didn't want to do so in the context of the Republican primary season at that time.

The two friends who have gone public, saying E. Jean Carroll told them about the alleged assault at the time. Is there much precedent for that testimony to be persuasive at trial when there is no physical evidence of the assault or no actual witnesses to it?

Jane Manning: There's a ton of precedent for this. These witnesses in criminal law are sometimes referred to as outcry witnesses, which is a little bit of an old-fashioned name, but there's a long-standing practice of calling witnesses like this to show that the victim confided in someone soon after the assault. However standard the practice may be, it's especially important in this case because Donald Trump's attorney is arguing that E. Jean Carroll's motives to lie are to hurt him politically and to sell her book.

Those motives are both motives that would only have been meaningful fairly recently. Donald Trump wasn't a political figure back in the 1990s, and E. Jean Carroll didn't have a book back in the 1990s. E. Jean Carroll's two witnesses, Carroll Martin, and Lisa Birnbach both rebut the idea that E. Jean Carroll's story was a recent fabrication. What does that mean? That means that Donald Trump's attorney Joseph Tacopina, not only has to attack the credibility of E. Jean Carroll at trial, but he also has to attack the credibility of her two outcry witnesses.

Boy, that raises the burden on him because these are two women, Carroll Martin, and Lisa Birnbach. They are journalists. They report stats for a living. They are both effective communicators who will very likely come across in a really professional and articulate way on the witness stand. It's hard to know what motive either of them would have to lie about something like this.

It would have to be a motive that was so powerful that the two of them would put their own personal and professional credibility on the line and subject themselves to the torrent of hate and disparagement that we know is going to be targeted at anyone who crosses Donald Trump. These two women know that. They're willing to take the witness stand anyway. It's going to be interesting to see how Joseph Tacopina tries to persuade a jury that these two women who have very little apparent to gain by telling a lie like this would do so.

Brian Lehrer: I want to acknowledge that about half our call-in lines are men calling in to say, hey, come on, where's the proof? Donald Trump is innocent until proven guilty. This kind of thing that goes back to the mid-nineties is really hard to prove one version or another of that. Let me take one of those callers. Jay in Bergen County, you're on WNYC. Jay, I wasn't trying to put specific words into your mouth, just a general feeling of what we're getting on the board from a bunch of callers, but you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Jay: Hi. Yes, that is the gist. Memory doesn't improve over the course of time, it worsens. Wouldn't those two women who were these outcry witnesses, I'm not sure what the hearsay exception would be, maybe an excited utterance or something right after the event. They weren't successful at persuading their friend to go to the authorities about this and all this time has passed and they've been silent all this time. There's a lot of fodder for the defense attorney to cross-examine these witnesses on. My question as I'm listening to the show is what was the impetus for this law?

I'm not saying one way or the other, whether the law should have been passed or not to give additional opportunity for victims to sue their accusers, but what was the impetus for it? Could it possibly have been just to-- because of Trump's outrageous statements bragging about his abuse of women in the past. Could it possibly be a political ploy to just damage Trump's prospects going forward?

Brian Lehrer: Jay, thank you. Jane.

Jane Manning: A lot of questions there. Jay asked a really good question which is what is the hearsay exception? The answer is that outcry testimony is its own hearsay exception, and it applies specifically in sex crime cases because these early disclosure witnesses often play such an important role in understanding a survivor's path from crime to reporting the crime. The question of memory doesn't get better over time. How do you defend against an allegation like that?

Our legal system for many ages has trusted the process of sworn testimony under direct and cross-examination as a really effective way to unearth a witness's motives, consistencies and inconsistencies, candor or lack of candor. We trust the jury system to take the process really seriously. I'll tell you my experience as a trial attorney is that jurors really do take their responsibilities very seriously. They hold prosecutors and plaintiffs to their burden of proof and I expect they're going to hold E. Jean Carroll to their burden of proof.

In terms of the impetus for the law and how much it had to do with wanting to hold Donald Trump accountable, I can tell you that is very much not the case. I'm pretty well acquainted with the survivors and the feminists and the activists and attorneys who were so involved in leading the way to the Adult Survivors Act being passed.

Donald Trump may have been one of a thousand factors motivating them, but he was by no means the primary factor.

The women who led the way on that campaign were women like Alison Turkos and Marissa Hoechstetter, and Elizabeth Crothers, and Drew Dixon, and women who had experienced a criminal and civil justice process that had failed them and were outraged and determined to open a better pathway to justice for themselves and other women like them.

Brian Lehrer: I've read that Carrol places the incident sometime in late 1995 or early 1996.

Jane Manning: Yes.

Brian Lehrer: Does not knowing the date or even the exact year of something that would've been so traumatic in her life hurt her case?

Jane Manning: Being able to narrow down the timeframe would surely help her case in the sense that it would help her search for corroborating evidence. It would just help her solidify the narrative more if she could remember. The closer you can set the date, the better it is for your narrative. She's probably worked very hard with the attorneys to narrow down as much as she can, a date range, using other milestones in her life. When was I doing this? When was I doing that? Does it hurt her case that she can't narrow it down more than that?

Well, it opens the door for Joseph Tacopina to argue, "Hey, she's left this so vague deliberately so that Donald Trump can't offer an alibi." I don't know how much weight that will carry with the jury. It's an argument that he has made. It's not an unreasonable argument. I don't know, though, that it's going to be a game-changer for the jury if they otherwise find E. Jean Carroll to be a credible and compelling witness.

Brian Lehrer: Catherine in Brooklyn is calling in because she wants to respond to our last caller, who was Jay in Bergen County. Catherine, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Catherine: Hello there. I just want to say to that caller, no woman who's been sexually assaulted forgets it. He said that memory fades with time. No, it doesn't. No woman who's been sexually assaulted forgets it. You remember every detail.

Jane Manning: Bravo. Absolutely right. Well said.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. We've got a few minutes left. The other part of the case filed by E. Jean Carroll is defamation for the way Trump denied the assault claim when she first made it in her book in 2019. Trump said she's lying and he said that thing that you referred to before, she's not my type. Why would those denials potentially amount to defamation rather than be a person's right to defend himself against an accusation?

Jane Manning: Well, the core of the lie is his claim that this is a hoax, that it didn't happen. That E. Jean Carroll is lying and perpetrating a hoax against him. That's a defamatory thing to say about anyone. Nobody wants to be branded a liar in public but especially a woman who makes her career as a journalist. Someone who needs to have the trust of her readers and of the public in order to be able to thrive in her career. In fact, E. Jean Carroll described in her complaint and elsewhere the effect that it had on her life when Donald Trump branded her a hoaxer.

For one thing, she experienced a torrent of hatred and threats via email and social media, which we're used to hearing that by now, that this is what happens to people when Donald Trump goes after them. That doesn't make it any less damaging or destabilizing to a person's well-being when it happens to you. She also said that it really changed her work as a columnist.

The volume of letters that she got from people dropped by half suggesting that there were a lot of people who bought into the idea that maybe she was not a believable person and so she wants her day in court to put the testimony and the evidence in front of a jury and as she described it herself, win back her good name. Then these other two defamatory statements that, "Oh, she's not my type." That's a thinly veiled swipe at her looks.

Brian Lehrer: Since when would somebody be held liable in court for taking a swipe at somebody's looks? You know what I mean? Is there precedent for that? Is there, this is what his lawyers would say. The argument from that side would be, "That's a pretty ordinary statement." They would say, "So is accusing your accuser of lying, people who are accused of things do that all the time?"

Jane Manning: Yes. These statements were all made in one breath, Brian when E. Jean Carroll initially came forward in 2019, and then again when her lawsuit was filed in 2022. Donald Trump went on one of his tirades and these statements were all made, more or less in the same tirade. "I didn't do it. This is a hoax. She's not my type and I never met her."

Those statements have all been brought together in E. Jean Carroll's complaint. One of the effects of that is that, as I said, she's already been able to cast out on two of them in her opening statement. I think it's true though that the core of the defamation goes to this idea that the rape didn't happen and then E. Jean Carroll is a hoaxer. Of course, being able to prove her battery claim, which goes to the rape itself, is going to be essential to being able to prove her defamation claim.

Brian Lehrer: We expect a verdict in this case when?

Jane Manning: The judge told the jurors to expect the trial to last a week or two. A verdict could conceivably come late next week or maybe the week after that. The judge has moved the trial along with great efficiency and so it wouldn't surprise me if the case went to a jury next week. How long they take to deliver a verdict is impossible to predict.

Brian Lehrer: Jane Manning, thank you so much for joining us. Really appreciate it.

Jane Manning: Thank you, Brian.

 

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