Well well well.

The Manhattan civil jury that found Donald

J

Trump liable for sexually assaulting and defaming former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll also went out on the former president, as he would say “a bitch”,

finding against him after less than three hours of deliberation Tuesday.

Trump had not raped Carroll, the

federal

jury decided, but the attack was real, and he had injured her,

acted with malice when he called her a liar

,

and damaged her reputation in the process. The jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll about $5 million.

We can learn a few lessons from Carroll’s victory and Trump’s defeat.

First, obituaries for the #MeToo movement and the positive cultural changes it has brought about are premature. The jury may not have awarded Trump the technical crime of rape, but she believed Carroll when she tested him pushing her against a locker room wall, pulling down her pantyhose, and sticking his fingers inside her.

Second, it turns out that narcissism can be its own punishment.

In a statement made last year, a gruff Trump, wearing facial makeup that was an even harsher shade of orange than usual, effectively sealed his own legal fate.

In a videotape shown to the jury, he accused Carroll’s attorney of being a political operative and a disgrace and, his favorite insult, not my type.

Roberta Kaplan took it all seriously and asked if he really believed when he bragged to Billy Bush in 2005 that stars can grab women’s genitals? Remember, when that tape went public during his first presidential campaign, he first claimed never to have said anything like that, and then claimed he indulged in locker room talk.

Apparently he was telling the truth all along.

Historically, Trump replied, that’s true with stars. If you look at the past million years, that’s largely true, unfortunately or fortunately. (

Cheerful?

)

Kaplan then asked if Trump is considering

edit

himself a star.

Yes, he replied.

It was pretty obvious to anyone keeping track that what Trump did to Carroll was pretty much what he said he did to women whenever he wanted to. And his claim that Carroll wasn’t his type was blatantly refuted when he misidentified a photo of her as his ex-wife Marla Maples.

There is a poetic justice to Trump’s own mean words that continue to haunt him.

And something extremely reassuring about the fact that New York law provides for this

get story

to victims of long-ago sexual assaults have accomplished just that.

There was no eyewitness When is there ever an eyewitness in a sexual assault case? but Carroll’s attorney was able to call 10 witnesses, two of whom testified that she told them about the traumatic event at the same time, and two of them testified that Trump had also sexually assaulted them, using a similar method.

New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for sexual assault, allowed Carroll to

Unpleasant

to blame

Trump in court

of raping her in the dressing room of the posh specialty store in Manhattan

,

Bergdorf Goodman

on

what she thinks was a Thursday night in the spring of 1996.

Trump’s lawyer tried to exploit her lack of certainty about the date of the attack. How can a man provide an alibi

if he doesn’t even know on what day he allegedly assaulted a woman? In a criminal trial, this missing piece of information would likely have been an insurmountable obstacle for a prosecutor.

But this was a civil process.

Carroll didn’t have to prove her case beyond a reasonable doubt. All she had to do was convince the nine-member jury

six male and three female jurors

that it was more likely than not that Trump had attacked her.

On the charge of defamation, she had to meet a “clear and convincing” standard. The swift verdict indicates that she has more than met the burden of proof.

I know from personal experience that traumatic events can lodge in your soul and change the course of your life, even if you can’t remember exactly when they happened. Shortly after I graduated from college, a rejected friend of mine came to my apartment late one night and tried to strangle me. The Berkeley police department that responded didn’t even press charges. Did it happen in 1978 or 1979? I have no ideas.

I have long since given up hope that any of the heinous things Trump has done or said, including inciting the deadly Jan. 6 Capitol riot and harassing Georgia election officials to fraudulently overthrow

President

Biden’s victory in their state in 2020 will have some effect on his legions of supporters. Despite

the shame of the outcome of this case for Trump

,

I doubt

are

status as the 2024 MAGA Republican Presidential Front

–

runner will change a lot

if at all

.

His immediate response? “Witch Hunt”, as usual.

But I want to stop for a moment

EJean

Carroll’s courage, as well as her dignity and composure on the witness stand when she was harassed by Trump’s attorney for why she never yelled while the future president attacked her.

Her response was, in my opinion, the most truthful and most memorable sentence of the trial: I tell you, he raped me whether I screamed or not.

@robinkabcarian