"Potentially more explosive": Expert warns next trial may be "fatal to Trump's political future"

A federal judge on Monday denied former President Donald Trump's request to delay a trial in the lawsuit brought by by author E. Jean Carroll, who alleged that Trump raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in a letter last week to postpone the trial, arguing that his client should be allowed a "cooling off" period after his recent indictment by a Manhattan grand jury in connection with an alleged hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

"Most defendants want to delay a trial because they know that evidence diminishes in value over time," said former U.S. Attorney Barb McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan. "Records can be lost, sometimes witnesses even die. The longer you can kick the can down the road, the longer he can avoid accountability."

In the letter, Trump's lawyers argued that the delay was needed because of the  "deluge" of publicity and "prejudicial media coverage concerning [Trump's] unprecedented indictment and arraignment." 

The trial is scheduled to start April 25, but his lawyers requested that it begin at the end of May.

Kaplan rejected the notion that delaying the trial would decrease the possibility of "negative publicity" before the trial.

"It is quite important to remember that postponements in circumstances such as this are not necessarily unmixed blessings from the standpoint of a defendant who is hoping for the dissipation of what he regards, or says he regards, as negative publicity," Kaplan wrote. "Events happen during postponements. Sometimes they can make matters worse."

Earlier this month, the former president pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges that he falsified business records to conceal reimbursement payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who had paid off Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.

The media coverage of Trump's indictment and arraignment could taint the jury pool, his lawyers argued. 

"The negative publicity argument might work in some cases, but not in this one…" McQuade said. "The publicity surrounding Trump's various legal matters is only likely to get more intense over time."

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Kaplan noted that "at least some portion" of recent media coverage of Trump's indictment "was of his own doing" and concluded that there is a "possibility that this latest eve-of-trial request for a postponement is a delay tactic."

In 2019, Carroll, a longtime Elle Magazine writer, accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman. Trump repeatedly denied Carroll's allegation, saying she was "totally lying" and "not my type". Carroll sued him for defamation in late 2019 and later added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that provides adult sexual assault victims the opportunity to file civil lawsuits, even if the statutes of limitations have long expired.

In that suit, Carroll said Trump "forcibly raped and groped her" and that he "knew he was lying" when he responded to her allegations, The Washington Post reported.

"Although Trump's recent criminal indictment and ongoing grand jury investigations have been the focus of much attention, E. Jean Carroll's parallel civil suits, accusing him of rape and defamation, are potentially more explosive," said Kevin O'Brien, a former federal prosecutor.

He added that the trial court has already ruled that Carroll can "buttress her testimony" by introducing the "notorious 'Access Hollywood' tape as well as the testimony of two other alleged victims of Trump, to prove that Trump has a "propensity" to sexually assault women, not just Carroll herself."

Carroll is among more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years.

The impact of her testimony, which has been corroborated by several acquaintances, O'Brien said, combined with other evidence "could be fatal to Trump's political future."