Ailes was chairman and chief executive of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News from 1996 and helped grow the network into America’s most influential conservative cable network. He resigned in 2016after a sexual harassment lawsuit was filed against him by a former anchor. Ailes died in 2017.
In video released by Kaplan Hecker& Fink,Donald Trump pauses during his October deposition for his trial against writer E. Jean Carroll.Credit:AP
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Kaplan said the way Trump characterised their friendship was one of the many lies he had told relating to the alleged rape. Others included Trump’s claim that he did not shop at Bergdorf Goodman (employees testified that he did);that Carroll was “not my type” (even though he confused a photo of her for his second wife,Marla Maples) and that,when corrected,he claimed the photo he was looking at was “blurry” (it wasn’t).
But Trump’s lawyer,Joe Tacopina,portrayed the accusations against the former president as “amazing,odd,inconceivable,unbelievable”.
He used his closing argument to attack the credibility of the formerElle advice columnist,along with that of two women who testified that Carroll told them about the rape not long after it happened:Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin.
Like Carroll,who is now 79,both were prominent in the New York media industry in the 1990s. Tacopina argued all three conspired to make up the allegations,partly due to political reasons,as they did not like Trump as president. He also argued,as Trump has,that Carroll wanted to boost book sales by fabricating the attack.
Tacopina also questioned why Trump,who was a successful real estate tycoon in the 1990s,would risk everything to attack a woman in a busy department store,noting that he could have easily invited her to his apartment at the nearby Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
“I ask you all to please,to please have the courage to do what is right here,” he told the jury.
The jury,made up of six men and three women in what is a very Democratic city,will have to decide if Trump is liable for battery and defamation. Carroll is seeking unspecified damages and a retraction by Trump,who is currently the Republican frontrunner for next year’s presidential nomination.
However,the trial is a civil case where the burden of proof is lower,and a verdict against Trump would not involve jail time.
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To assess Carroll’s claim of battery (in connection with the rape) the jury will simply have to decide if it was “more probable than not” that the assault occurred. On the claim of defamation,the jury will have to decide if her claim of reputational damage is “clear and convincing” enough to warrant compensation.
Trump has not presented a defence case and his only expected witness,a psychiatrist,did not testify last week due to health reasons. He did not attend the trial,despite suggesting last week that he might cut short a trip to Ireland to do so.