Former President Donald Trump displayed mysterious red marks on his hand as he attended the trial where his rape accuser, E. Jean Carroll, testified in New York City. The 77-year-old Trump returned to New York late on Tuesday night after a campaign rally in New Hampshire, facing a whirlwind 24 hours since winning the Iowa caucuses.
Photographs captured Trump leaving Trump Tower early on Wednesday morning, revealing red cuts on his hand. Carroll, an advice columnist and magazine writer, testified in the second federal civil trial regarding her allegations against Trump, who vehemently denies them all. She claimed that Trump had ‘shattered her reputation’ by allegedly sexually assaulting her and disparaging her as a ‘wack job.’
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, faced a rebuke from Judge Lewis Kaplan after her attempt to delay the trial due to the former president’s desire to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral was rejected. Trump, who leads the Republican field in the current presidential race, sat in on the jury selection on Tuesday.
The ongoing trial pertains to remarks Trump made while he was president, following the first jury’s findings that he sexually abused Carroll in the 1990s and defamed her in 2022. Trump is managing court appearances alongside campaign stops, emphasizing on social media that the case is built on ‘fabricated lies and political shenanigans,’ claiming it to be an ‘attempted extortion.’
Carroll alleges that Trump forced himself on her in 1996 and subsequently attacked her honesty, motives, and sanity when she publicly disclosed the incident in a 2019 memoir. Trump’s response, she contends, has severely damaged her reputation, leading to the loss of millions of readers and her column at Elle Magazine.
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, argued that Carroll’s accusations were an attempt to blame the former president for ‘a few mean tweets from Twitter trolls.’ Trump, on social media, labeled the case as a fabrication and political maneuvering, asserting that he is the victim of attempted extortion.
As Carroll testifies in the second civil trial, seeking $10 million in compensatory damages along with punitive damages, the legal battle continues to unfold amid a backdrop of political ambitions and public scrutiny for the former president.
