Weissmann, who was sitting in the courtroom for the first several days of court, explained that an earlier civil trial has already ruled that Trump "sexually abused" Carroll and then defamed her by denying it, and awarded her $5 million in damages.
The ongoing case involves an earlier defamation involving the same sexual abuse allegation, with these comments happening while Trump was still president. The judge has already found him liable, and the trial is to determine damages.
"There is no mulligan. There is no do-over," said Weissmann, who previously served as a senior prosecutor to special counsel Robert Mueller.
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"The bizarre part of what's going on is that Donald Trump, to this day, I'm sure today, as we're talking, Mary, continues to make statements about E. Jean Carroll," he continued. "Or continue the defamation. One of the oddities on Thursday, when I was in court, which is the last day of an actual trial day because there was no sitting on Friday, and then on Monday and Tuesday, there were issues with the sickness of a juror and of one of Donald Trump's defense lawyers being ill. ... But what's odd is on Thursday there was almost real-time evidence coming in."
He was referring to posts that appeared on Trump's Truth Social account. Either Trump had someone posting for him, or a slate of posts was scheduled to be published as he sat in court.
"E. Jean Carroll is like, 'Judge, we're going to put in evidence about what just happened,'" Weissmann continued, paraphrasing Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.
It reminded him of Rudy Giuliani's case, when some of the evidence that was presented in the defamation claims made by Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss came from comments the defendant made during the first day of the trial.
These statements will factor into consideration about punitive damages made by the jury — the funds awarded to punish a liable individual. Compensatory damages would be the amount necessary to repair what was done. In this case, a marketing expert estimated "reputation rehabilitation" for Carroll would amount to $12 million.
"And relevant to that is the person continuing or being contrite," Weissmann said. "Of course, he's not contrite. One of the things E. Jean Carroll testified was that she has security with her. She has a gun that she keeps by her side. There are death threats that she receives. I mean, it was really chilling testimony."
He explained that it's akin to what Freeman and Moss described. They aren't the only ones. Election workers, judges and other officials are all being targeted by political violence from far-right supporters of Trump's. In the Carroll case, the judge encouraged jurors not to put their real names on documents to protect themselves from Trump fans.
"What is also rampant is Republicans who don't feel the need to say that is unacceptable," he noted.
"And I think it also shows that there is maybe no amount of money that will deter him from continuing to engage in the kind of defamation and lies that he tells on a daily basis," said McCord.
"Which tells me that he thinks it's more important to his ultimate goal, which is to stay out of jail, to continue telling these lies. And to have the American people that he appeals to be willing to go to the polls and vote for him and soundly reject any notion that the criminal cases are valid or legitimate and call them witch hunts."
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