Experts say Trump lawyer’s Carroll grilling may backfire: “He went far enough to irritate” the judge

E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump’s lawyer got into multiple heated exchanges as the writer took the stand for the second day in the civil trial a day after she testified that the former president raped her in the 1990s.

Carroll is suing Trump under a New York law that grants victims of sexual abuse a one-time opportunity to sue their attackers even if the assault occurred decades earlier, as well as for defamation after he accused her of lying.

Trump attorney Joe Tacopina questioned the validity of Carroll’s claims and suggested that she only came forward in 2019, decades after the alleged incident, because of her strong dislike for Trump’s politics and her desire to promote her book.

“He is trying to poke holes in her narrative, to challenge her memory and to put her on trial instead of Mr. Trump,” John Kaley, a former assistant US attorney in the Southern District of New York, told Salon.

When Tacopina asked her why she didn’t scream when the sexual assault happened, Carroll defended herself by saying: “You can’t beat up on me for not screaming,” several news outlets reported.

“One of the reasons women don’t come forward is because they’re always asked, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ Some women scream; some women don’t. It keeps women silent,” Carroll added, according to The Washington Post.

Carroll explained she was prompted to come forward after The New York Times exposed film producer Harvey Weinstein’s sexual predation in a 2017 article.

“When that happened, across the country women began telling their stories, and I was flummoxed [and thought], wait a minute, can we actually speak up and not be pummeled?” Carroll testified, according to Politico. “I thought, well this may be a way to change the culture of sexual violence. The light dawned. I thought, we can actually change things if we all tell our stories. And I thought by god, this may be the time.”

Tacopina continued to challenge Carroll on specific details of her account of the alleged rape and pressed her on her recollection of the incident, even asking her how she attacked him in 4-inch heels.

His questioning reportedly sparked repeated reprimand from U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who said some of the questions were “argumentative” and “repetitive,” The New York Times reported.

“He went far enough to irritate Judge Kaplan and to have Judge Kaplan tone him down,” Catherine Ross, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, told Salon.

Some of his actions were also intimidating, Ross added, pointing to one of the descriptions she read about with Tacopina pacing around the courtroom after everyone returned from lunch break. 

“It reminded me a little bit about of what Trump did to Hilary [Clinton] in one of the debates,” Ross said. “When he got in her space. It wasn’t quite as bad, but it was the same kind of approach to make someone physically uncomfortable.”

Tacopina also belittled Carroll’s testimony about how she delayed coming forward until after the election because of her dying mother, The Daily Beast reported.

“The most striking thing about the questions from the ones that I saw was really his lack of showing any empathy for her when he was talking about the death of her mother…” Ross said. “I think all of us can understand that there may be things in our lives that would be too upsetting for our parents, not because we’re still teenagers and we’re keeping secrets, but we want to protect them when they’re old and not upset them.”

Former federal prosecutor Faith Gay told Salon that since Tacopina was so argumentative and was repeatedly called out by Kaplan for improper questioning, Carroll’s occasional argumentative answers and voice-raising will not hurt her.  

“[Instead], Tacopina’s questions also gave Carroll a chance to punctuate her testimony by repeatedly stating, with passion, ‘I was raped’ not ‘allegedly’ raped as Tacopina suggested, and ‘I was raped even though I didn’t scream,'” said Gay. “It also gave the jury a chance to see Carroll as the complex, spirited 79-year-old that she is, part vulnerable, part fighting back.”

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Trump, who hasn’t stepped foot inside the courtroom, has called the case against him  “a made-up scam” on Truth Social and referred to Carroll’s lawyer as a “a political operative, financed by a big political donor.”

Kaplan gave a warning and rebuke in response to his outburst, deeming it “completely inappropriate.”

“What seems to be the case is that your client is basically endeavoring certainly to speak to his ‘public,’ but, more troublesome, to the jury in this case about stuff that has no business being spoken about,” the judge observed, according to the Associated Press.

His failure to appear inside the courtroom could work against him, Ross said, arguing that it substantiates Carroll’s statements about Trump’s arrogance. 

“Especially where you have a defendant who isn’t willing to tell his side of the story and doesn’t even give the victim the respect to show up in the courtroom because this is a civil trial,” Ross said. “That would tell the jury a lot of what they need to know about whether her recounting of the facts makes sense in context.” 

Ross added that Carrol was a “fantastic witness” since she did not allow Trump’s lawyer to “push her around” and responded, “vigorously to some of his more outrageous statements.”