Since earlier than the primary E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, Trump’s legal professionals have fixated on the weird principle that it in some way doesn’t rely if there’s no penis concerned.

He made that argument in an try to disqualify testimony by different ladies who accused the previous president of groping however not raping them. He made it in his counterclaim in Carroll I, arguing that the the jury’s verdict that Trump sexually abused however didn’t rape the recommendation columnist, meant that she was a liar who defamed him. His minions have cheerfully parroted the road, with Alan Dershowitz crowing that the jury solely discovered Trump “liable on kinda molesting her.” And he made it in his movement for a brand new trial or remittitur, arguing that the jury should have been confused when it assessed $2 million in compensatory damages for conduct which might have amounted to not more than “groping of [Carroll’s] breasts through clothing or similar conduct, which is a far cry from rape.”

After greater than three years of shenanigans from Trump and his legal professionals, this movement seems to have landed very badly with Judge Lewis Kaplan.

“Mr. Trump is right that a $2 million award for such groping alone could well be regarded as excessive, that undermines rather than supports his argument,” he wrote, including that “Mr. Trump’s argument therefore ignores the bulk of the evidence at trial, misinterprets the jury’s verdict, and mistakenly focuses on the New York Penal Law definition of ‘rape’ to the exclusion of the meaning of that word as it often is used in everyday life and of the evidence of what actually occurred between Ms. Carroll and Mr. Trump.”

Judge Kaplan not solely rejected the movement for brand new trial, he took the event to recap all of the extremely damaging testimony and level out that Trump offered completely no protection when he had the possibility, however as an alternative seeks to undo the jury verdict by eliding the distinction between the colloquial definition of “rape,” and that of New York’s regulation.

“The definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere,” the court docket famous, citing dictionaries and different jurisdictions’ legal guidelines defining “rape” as non-consensual penetration of any type. “The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

The court docket scoffed at Trump’s effort to reinterpret the jury’s discovering that he didn’t efficiently handle to penetrate Carroll together with his penis as a wholesale refutation of her account of the assault. In reality, the jury clearly believed her when she she mentioned that the she had skilled super ache from being digitally penetrated by the previous president within the long-ago assault in a division retailer dressing room — therefore the $2 million verdict on the sexual abuse rely. And they very clearly didn’t consider Trump when he mentioned he’d by no means met her and that she had concocted the story as a part of a political hoax — therefore the $3 million defamation award.

In reality, the jury might have interpreted Trump’s prior statements as a confession that he “digitally raped” Carroll:

Mr. Trump’s personal phrases from the Access Hollywood tape and from his deposition – that (a) stars “[u]nfortunately or fortunately” “c[ould] do anything” they wished to do to ladies, together with “grab[bing] them by the pussy” and (b) he considers himself to be a “star” – might have been regarded by the jury as a kind of private confession as to his habits. Thus, there was ample, arguably overwhelming proof, that Mr. Trump forcibly digitally penetrated Ms. Carroll, thus totally supporting the jury’s sexual abuse discovering.

Finally, the court docket noticed that Trump didn’t deny raping Carroll below the slim definition of New York Penal Law — he mentioned she was a liar and he’d by no means met her. And so his assertion might be moderately construed as defamatory if the jury discovered, because it did, that this conduct solely met the authorized customary for sexual abuse.

“There is thus no factual or legal support for Mr. Trump’s made-up version of Ms. Carroll’s defamation claim,” Judge Kaplan concluded, kicking closed a door which Trump most likely needs he’d by no means opened.

One amongst so, very many.

Carroll v. Trump I [Docket via Court Listener]
Carroll v. Trump II [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore the place she writes about regulation and politics and seems on the Opening Arguments podcast.