Jury finds Donald Trump sexually abused columnist E Jean Carroll: Will Americans still vote for him?

Former United States president Donald Trump has been found liable for sexually assaulting and defaming magazine writer E Jean Carroll by a New York jury. In its verdict on Tuesday (9 May), the jury also ordered Trump to pay the advice columnist $5 million in damages. Carroll had accused the Republican of raping her in the dressing room of a luxury Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Trump, who was not present at the civil trial, took to his social media site to slam the judgement, calling it “a disgrace” and “a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time”, reported Associated Press (AP). Let’s look closer at the judgement and how it can impact Trump who is running for the 2024 US presidential elections. Trump found liable for sexual battery The New York jury, consisting of six men and three women, dismissed Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her but found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation . Carroll had gone public with her allegations of rape against Trump in a 2019 memoir, describing in detail what occurred in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman, a posh department store, in the spring of 1996. [caption id=“attachment_12574372” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] E Jean Carroll accused Donald Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a posh Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. AP[/caption] Trump has denied the allegations, claiming he did not know Carroll. He has also called her a “nut job” who invented “a fraudulent and false story” to sell a memoir, as per AP. Trump’s lawyers have told reporters that he would appeal against the verdict. “This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that, made other findings,” Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina was quoted as saying by The Washington Post. “We’ll obviously be appealing those other findings.” Not rape?

Some legal experts were confused by the verdict which found Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape.

According to The Washington Post report, the jurors were given three forms of battery under which Trump could be held liable: rape, sexual abuse and forcible touching. Judge Lewis A Kaplan told them that to deem it rape, they have to find that there was sexual intercourse by force, including penetration. For sexual abuse, they had to find if there was touching of sexual or intimate parts by force. “It doesn’t make sense for the jurors to return a ‘no’ on rape but a ‘yes’ on sexual abuse, based on the testimony and the defense’s arguments,” Corey Rayburn Yung, a criminal law professor at the University of Kansas, told Slate magazine. Explaining why it was not deemed rape, the law professor said that the “word rape carries extra connotations in our culture, and the jurors might have been gun shy about applying it regardless of the specific standard there”. ALSO READ: ‘Donald Trump raped me…’: Who is E Jean Carroll, the writer suing the former US president for alleged sexual assault? What does the verdict mean for Trump? As it was a civil case, there would be no potential jail time for Trump. The GOP leader has been accused of sexual misconduct by at least 26 women, as per Vox. However, this was the first time that any sexual misconduct or assault allegations against Trump reached the trial stage. Most of the Republicans remained silent after the verdict, exhibiting their reluctance to irk Trump’s supporters, noted AP. But one of Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, spoke out, saying: “The jury verdict should be treated with seriousness and is another example of the indefensible behavior of Donald Trump.” [caption id=“attachment_12574402” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Donald Trump has been accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. Reuters File Photo[/caption] Citing Trump’s many legal troubles, GOP Senator John Thune hinted that the New York jury verdict should make the Republicans “rethink their 2024 calculus”, reported The Washington Post.  “I think there’s going to be an ongoing drumbeat over the next couple years as [Trump] is a candidate,” Thune said. “People are going to have to decide if that’s a factor. For a lot of voters, it’s going to be.” The verdict’s impact on the campaign of Trump, who is expected to emerge as the final Republican nominee to take on Joe Biden in 2024, is “unclear”, as per AP. According to the latest poll released by ABC News/Washington Post over the weekend, Trump is likely to be ahead of Biden in a two-way race. Notably, Trump already has legal baggage – he is the first now-former president to be impeached twice and the first that held the top post to be charged with criminal activity. However, observers believe that the sexual abuse verdict would not have much impact on Trump’s core voter base. Rick Tyler, a Republican strategist and prominent Trump critic, told Insider that it is “unlikely to do more than dent his support among Republican voters”. “The Trump cult will explain it all away.” But, it can sway swing voters, who will “swing as far away from Trump as possible, making him unelectable in the general”, Tyler was quoted as saying by Insider. As has been seen previously, Trump’s “supporters do not appear particularly concerned about his many legal problems, and many of them are likely to hang much on either Trump’s denials or the jury’s rejection of Carroll’s specific claim of rape”, according to Politico.  Even if Trump’s campaign might not be adversely affected, the New York verdict is another “historical first”. According to BBC, it stands out and “lands a blow against Trump in a way that mere investigations do not”. “A jury of everyday Americans have considered the evidence and found that Trump did wrong,” noted the United Kingdom broadcaster.   With inputs from agencies Read all the  Latest News ,  Trending News ,  Cricket News ,  Bollywood News , India News  and  Entertainment News  here. Follow us on  Facebook ,  Twitter  and  Instagram .