January 18 - Trump’s trial in E. Jean Carroll defamation case

The testimony of Northwestern Professor Ashlee Humphreys was the last court action for the week. The court will be closed Friday and the trial will resume Monday.

Northwestern University professor Ashlee Humphreys is questioned by E. Jean Carroll's lawyer on January 18, in this courtroom sketch.

Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Madaio took steps to question Northwestern University Professor Ashlee Humphreys’ analyses, suggesting that Trump supporters would be unlikely to believe E. Jean Carroll’s story about the former president, regardless of Trump’s statements, because of confirmation bias.

Trump’s attorney pointed out that Trump never spoke publicly about Carroll until he denied her allegations after she made them in the New York magazine excerpt of her book in 2019.

Over several objections from Carroll’s attorney, Madaio also clarified that the report does not differentiate between the effect of Carroll’s allegations on her reputational shift versus Trump’s comments on the writer. 

Madaio highlighted an excerpt from one of Humphrey’s trial reports acknowledging to an extent Carroll’s own role in how the public perceives her.

“While some shift was attributable to the publication of her memoir and New York Magazine piece in which she detailed the alleged encounter with Mr. Trump, an analysis of Google search data … illustrates that Mr. Trump’s response, and not her initial claim, resulted in the escalating attention that she has received and played a considerable role in shifting the nature and valence of associations with her name,” the report says.

Trump’s attorney also questioned a word cloud data visualization in Humphrey’s report that depicts the frequency of words associated to Carroll in news articles. Words such as “lying” and “money” are in small font size compared to more generic terms such as “trump” and “carrol,” meaning they were less frequent.

You would agree that the vast majority of the words on here have nothing to do with Miss Carroll being a liar, right?” Madaio asked.

Trump’s lawyer Michael Madaio finished his cross-examination of Northwestern professor Ashlee Humphreys, questioning her over the feasibility of her analysis that it would have cost E. Jean Carroll as much as $12 million to restore her reputation after Donald Trump’s statements in 2019.

Madaio challenged the feasibility of the reputational repair campaign Humphreys designed, specifically the likelihood of soliciting conservative media personalities like Joe Rogan and Candace Owens to spread positive messages about Carroll to change the attitudes of people who likely support Trump.

Both Rogan and Owens are available to hire for paid media messaging, Humphreys testified.

Judge Lewis Kaplan grew frustrated with some of Madaio’s questions, including when he asked Humphreys whether she made allegations about a sitting president at the time.

“You’re now wasting time big time. Stop it,” Kaplan interjected. “We all agree Lincoln was the 16th. Let’s move on.”

Wrapping up cross-examination, Madaio asked the professor to confirm that she recently made her own Twitter account private about three weeks ago.

Humphreys said she did so in light of her upcoming testimony in the high-profile trial. “In general, I thought it best not to receive input from others on my Twitter,” Humphreys said when asked if she did it because she knew she’d get negative backlash.

Humphreys’ testimony has concluded.

Northwestern University professor Ashlee Humphreys is questioned by E. Jean Carroll's lawyers on January 18, in this courtroom sketch. 

Northwestern University professor Ashlee Humphreys, who was called as a witness by E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers as an expert on damages, testified it could cost up to $12.1 million for Carroll to repair her reputation with those who likely believed Donald Trump.

Humphreys — who was contracted to analyze the reach of Donald Trump’s statements and assess the damage to Carroll’s reputation — created a hypothetical reputation-repair campaign designed to change the minds of the nearly 25 million people that she estimates were likely to have been receptive to Trump’s comments about Carroll.

Someone in that audience would need to see corrective messaging as many as seven times to change their minds, Humphreys testified. It could cost up to $12.1 million to implement a campaign that could change the “strongly held” attitudes of people who likely believe Trump. 

Humphreys said her analysis found that damage of Trump’s statements at issue in this case “was severe to her [Carroll’s] reputation as a journalist, and the costs to repair it are considerable.”

Carroll’s attorney asked Humphreys a series of questions about a report she compiled for this case related to the reach of Trump’s 2019 statements denying Carroll’s allegations.

In total Humphrey’s analysis estimates Trump’s 2019 statements garnered somewhere between 85.8 million and 104.1 million impressions from social media, television, and online stories. The Northwestern University professor said that’s probably a low estimate because she didn’t factor in certain data sources like Facebook, Reddit, or local news outlets.

E. Jean Carroll is cross examined on Thursday, January 18, in this courtroom sketch.

E. Jean Carroll is off the stand after a day and a half of testimony in the civil trial to decide how much money in damages, if any, former President Donald Trump must pay her for his 2019 defamatory statements about her sexual assault allegations. 

Carroll faced re-direct questioning from her attorney Roberta Kaplan, followed by re-cross examination by Trump attorney Alina Habba. 

Dr. Ashlee Humphreys, an expert on damages who testified at the first trial, is the next witness called to the stand.

E. Jean Carroll’s attorney played a clip of Donald Trump’s statement he gave at his 40 Wall Street property after leaving court Wednesday evening, where Trump continued to attack Carroll.

When Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan played a clip of Trump’s statement about Carroll during her redirect, Trump attorney Alina Habba asked that the entire video statement be played.

Judge Lewis Kaplan said he didn’t realize that wasn’t the entire statement. “I don’t know that because I’m not glued to CNN,” he said.

They moved on, however, without playing the entire statement.

Roberta Kaplan asked Carroll if she’d rather have the reputation she had before coming forward against Trump or after.

“Before,” Carroll said.

Habba followed up on re-cross examination with another question about whether it was Carroll’s choice to publish her story in New York Magazine’s “The Cut.”

“Yes,” Carroll said.

Donald Trump's lawyer Alina Habba cross examines E. Jean Carroll on January 18, in this courtroom sketch.

In closing her cross-examination, Trump attorney Alina Habba challenged E. Jean Carroll about her notoriety and her motives linked to the lawsuits against Donald Trump. 

Habba then pressed Carroll if her reputation is better now.

“No, my status was lowered,” Carroll responded. “I’m partaking in this trial to bring my old reputation and status back.”

When asked if she sued Trump to bring her reputation back, Carroll replied, “Yeah.” Carroll confirmed she had around 10,500 followers on Twitter in 2017, and now has more than 282,000 followers on the social media platform. One of Carroll’s posts after the verdict last year, “Ladies may I have a word with you, WE WON” garnered more than 3.9 million views.

Habba then recounted several celebrities that praised Carroll publicly after she won the first trial against Trump.

“Yes, it was all wonderful. They were very happy with the verdict,” Carroll said.

Habba also questioned Carroll about sexually explicit tweets she posted in the years before 2019, which remain on her public account. Not all the tweets came into evidence as Judge Lewis Kaplan sustained some objections from Carroll’s attorney arguing the social media posts were not relevant.

Once E. Jean Carroll is off the witness stand, her lawyers plan to call an expert witness and others who testified at the first defamation trial last year as part of their case that Donald Trump should pay damages for defaming Carroll denying her rape allegations.

A jury in the civil trial will determine how much, if anything, Trump will pay in damages for defaming Carroll over 2019 statements he made denying her sexual assault allegations.

An expert on damages who testified at the first trial, Professor Ashlee Humphreys, is expected to testify again.

Carroll’s lawyers want to call two other women who testified in the first trial – Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds – and allege that Trump sexually assaulted them, though the judge has not yet said whether they will be allowed to testify.

Carroll’s former boss at Elle Magazine, Robbie Myers, is also expected to testify.

And Carroll’s lawyers have indicated they may play portions of Trump’s 2022 deposition, as well as the widely reported Access Hollywood tape, where Trump can be heard making vulgar comments about his treatment of women to show host Billy Bush.

Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled before trial that the tape may played, ruling it could inform the jury on Trump’s views of women who accuse him of assault.

Trump attorney Alina Habba is questioning E. Jean Carroll about her income before and after her 2019 book that contained the sexual assault allegations involving Donald Trump.

Habba asked Carroll about her income today, and she said she makes about $100,000 from Substack posts - an online publishing platform, and some income from her books. Habba then asked her to confirm that’s more than what she was making in 2018 at Elle for her column.

Carroll has testified she made $60,000 at Elle before she left in 2019, though she has said she made as much as $400,000 in one year at her peak in the 1990s.

Habba’s line of questioning focuses on the idea that Carroll’s once lucrative career fizzled by 2018, and that’s when she decided to write a book including the Trump allegations.

Habba also pressed Carroll again about the messages she received in the five hours between the release of her story in New York Magazine’s “The Cut” on June 21, 2019, which contained her sexual assault allegations, and when Trump’s statement denying the allegations was posted on social media. Trump’s lawyer is reviewing some negative tweets Carroll received in that time. 

When Carroll looked at her social media feedback later that night, she said she didn’t distinguish the timing of messages she received as before and after Trump responded to the story.

“No, there were so many I did not focus on the time. There were so many,” she said.

After Alina Habba read several scathing tweets into the record Carroll’s lawyer said she’d be willing to stipulate that her client received “nasty tweets” before Trump released his statement the day the story came out.

E. Jean Carroll has taken the stand Thursday morning to resume her testimony in the civil trial to determine damages in Donald Trump’s defamation of her.

This trial is to determine how much money in damages, if any, Trump must pay to Carroll for his defamatory statements about her sexual assault allegations made in 2019.

Carroll spent the entire day on the stand Wednesday. 

She is currently under cross-examination by Trump attorney Alina Habba, who indicated she had about 30 minutes of questioning left when court ended Wednesday.