E. Jean Carroll, the writer to whom a jury awarded an additional $83.3 million in damages last week as part of a defamation trial against Donald Trump, says her fears about seeing him evaporated the moment she saw him in court.
“I hadn't seen him since he assaulted me in the dressing room. And preparing to see him was terrifying,” Carroll said. “I hadn't slept, I hadn't eaten, I couldn't think, I lost my language when she was trying to prepare me to go, to do testimony in front of Donald Trump.”
“Then, when we were in the courtroom and Robbie went to the lectern, she said, ‘Good morning, E. Jean, please state your name and spell it,’ … And there he was, and he was nothing. He was just no power … He was zero. I was flabbergasted … He's an emperor without clothes. It's like looking at nothing.”
A jury last year had already found Trump liable for defaming Carroll by mocking her allegation that he sexually abused her.
Carroll was also asked if she was surprised by her feeling, given the heated environment of the courtroom.
“Yes, I had been prepared for the worst force, you know, on the earth today — the most powerful, the most, the most effective, the most money, the richest … And there he is, he's nothing,” Carroll said. “He's just the people around him who give him the power. It's the emperor without clothes. It's Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale. You know, people just gave him clothes when he wasn't wearing any. Remember the fairy tale? So, that's Donald Trump.”
