hi, everyone. it s 4:00 in new york, an extraordinary and historic moment unfolding today in a manhattan courthouse where a jury of six men and three women ruled that the disgraced, impeached, indicted ex-president and now also liable for sexually abusing writer e. jean carroll inside a luxury manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. trump was also found liable for defamatory statements he made toward carroll including calling her claims a hoax and a con job. in total this jury awarded the former journalist nearly $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. the jury did not find trump liable for raping e. jean carroll. it s the only claim on the ten count verdict that went in his favor. while the jury s unanimous verdict was decided in less than three hours it carries no criminal implications for donald trump, it is nonetheless a historic moment of accountability for the ex-president and current republican front-runner. donald trump with his long record of lying and
as cornell said to prevent him from getting that 47% that he needs. kim, we just got our first statement from e. jean carroll. i want to read it to you. i filed this lawsuit against donald trump to clear my name and get my life back. today the world finally knows the truth. this victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed. i would like to express my deep and lasting gratitude to all those who have stood by me from the start, especially my incredible and fearless legal team led by robbie kaplan who never, ever backed down in pursuit of truth and justice. a pretty remarkable full circle moment for her today. yeah, and i think it s worth just underscoring the fact that this verdict happened because the law was changed in new york that allowed people who for so long had been bullied or dismissed by more powerful
associate on her team working on the case. there were probably about two dozen people working on this case, and my guess is that they re all exhausted and exhilarated and sad simultaneously tonight. a really powerful way to end this part of the conversation, lisa rubin, andrew weissmann, we re the hotel california of cable news. you can check out but you can never leave. that s it. i know you all joined us for a block, ended up staying for the hour. we re so grateful to have had all of you. thank you. on the eve of the ex-president s reemergence object mainstream news, it s going to be over on cnn on a televised town hall, the same day the jury finds him liable for sexual assault, sexual abuse. one of the only truth tellers in the gop is out with a new ad warning all americans of the dangers of donald trump s imminent return. a very short break for us. don t go anywhere today.
outside of the trumpian echo chamber, and when they were not pierced by constant disinformation, it feels likethrust a disinformation and we re going to get to this. it feels like the truth was very much on the line with this decision as well. absolutely. so two points on that. as lisa and mary have pointed out this has to be and was a unanimous verdict, meaning all nine jurors. and there s essential reporting now that at least one if not more of the jurors were quite sympathetic to the maga movement and got their information at least from people who were sort of aligned with sort of far-right conspiracy theories. and that to my mind really reminds me very much of the
mr. tacopina appeals this verdict. his client has another case with e. jean carroll he still possibly has to grapple with. at the time that he made those statements, he had 63 million followers on twitter. i don t know where you find him now on his social truth thing, but i know he doesn t have 63 million followers there, and he was the sitting president of the united states of america. it seems that a jury could find that defaming someone from that perch is more damaging. is that a fair question to have? yes, the compensation that can be awarded in a libel suit is very much tied up with the reach and the impact of the defamatory lie. so in every instance the plaintiff has to show that something false was told about them and that it harmed their reputation and then put forth evidence about how that knowing falsity or that lie told with reckless disregard for the truth