Trump’s lawyer vows to appeal the verdict.
Outside of the courthouse in Lower Manhattan, Donald J. Trump’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, said the trial had been unfair in several ways and his client intended to appeal the verdict.
Mr. Tacopina said Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who oversaw the case in federal court, had displayed a bias toward Ms. Carroll in several decisions. He called the court “highly prejudicial.”
For starters, Mr. Tacopina said, the judge allowed E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers to play for the jury the Access Hollywood tape in which Mr. Trump boasted about how his status as a celebrity gave him the ability to kiss and grab women’s genitalia without asking.
“There were things that happened in this case that were beyond the pale,” Mr. Tacopina said. He added: “In New York you can’t get a fair trial.”
Mr. Tacopina defended Mr. Trump’s decision not to testify.
“This was a circus atmosphere, and having him be here would be more of a circus,” Mr. Tacopina said. He added that Mr. Trump could do little more than say, “‘I didn’t do it?’ And he said that under oath here. It’s hard to prove a negative.”
He said that he thought the anonymous jury was particularly unfair to Mr. Trump’s side.
“We should have been able to tell something about the background of these people,” he said. “Unfortunately, having anonymous jurors, even kept from the lawyers, I don’t think was fair or was right.”
When asked if the verdict would derail Trump’s presidential campaign, Mr. Tacopina had a one word answer.
“Nope,” he said.
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