A jury in New York almost immediately found former President Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, putting him on the hook for millions of dollars in the civil trial brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. However, they did not hold him liable specifically for rape, which led to his attorney Joe Tacopina giving a triumphant speech to reporters and handwaving away the overwhelming majority of claims Carroll won with promises to appeal those judgments.
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, former federal prosecutor Laura Coates broke down the strangeness of Tacopina trying to spin this result as a victory for Trump.
"It was also brought up several times in a short address there that this was a rape trial," said anchor Jake Tapper. "He was accused of rape, but the jury did not find trump guilty of rape, but of sexual abuse. Not to be too graphic, what she's accused him of is digitally penetrating her without her consent. So I don't know of technically the details here, but is it relevant he wasn't found guilty of rape?"
"I'm sure it's relevant in his ability to say in front of the reporters that Donald Trump was not found to be a quote, unquote, 'rapist,'" said Coates. "But I found a couple things odd about that statement. He said it's difficult to prove a negative. They compared this case to say, I stole your pen. How would I prove that? Just so we're all clear, in this country and beyond, a sexual assault very distinct from stealing one's pen."
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However, Coates continued, it's important to note that "the law in New York means two different things."
"There's sexual contact, which is under sexual abuse, meaning your person has had contact with somebody's genitalia or other private areas, and that it was without consent," said Coates. "Now, rape and sexual assault, in a different context, often means penetration without one's consent, normally by force. A finding of sexual contact is still a non-consensual offensive touching, that's where you have the battery part come in of one's intimate genitalia. I don't know if you want to split hairs on these two issues. They both are particularly problematic."
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Laura Coates on Joe Tacopina's victory lapwww.youtube.com
