Hmmm

Hold on a minute. This woman has been claiming for years -- in her articles, book, and just recently, under oath -- that Trump raped her. Not only did a Manhattan jury rule against her on that claim, they even returned no verdict on the lesser "forcible touching" threshold

As to the threshold for which the jury found in the affirmative, "sexual abuse," the judge instructed jurors the following: "The law does not define which parts of the body are intimate. Apply your common sense, using general societal norms. Sexual gratification is subjective"

The judge had previously told jurors that under the general auspices of "battery," actions that apply could include "a gentle but unwanted peck on the cheek"

Carroll gave graphic testimony detailing how Trump had raped her, the jury ruled against that claim, then returned no verdict on "intimate touching," which the judge defined to jurors as "forcibly touching the intimate parts of another for the purpose of degrading or gratifying"

So to wrap up, even under a "preponderance of the evidence" standard -- recall, vastly lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt" -- the jury ruled against the rape claim and was silent on the only other claim that would have entailed unlawful touching of intimate bodily areas

The only "battery" threshold for which the jury ruled in favor of Carroll was the one where they were given near-infinite latitude (as requested by Carroll lawyers) to make a "subjective" determination about actions which the judge said could include a "gentle kiss on the cheek"

If this is going to be portrayed as legal vindication of a rape accusation, even though it's the opposite, the burden of proof has gotten so low that anyone who gives "a gentle kiss on the cheek" that's later claimed to have been "unwanted" could be portrayed as a proven rapist

And just to be clear, here is the central claim Carroll made against Trump. The jury did *not* validate this claim in the slightest -- they did the opposite. Absurd for the media to portray it as anything else

The whole reason Carroll became a figure of any notoriety is she wrote a book claiming Trump pinned her against a wall, pulled down her tights, forcibly penetrated her vagina with his fingers, and forcibly penetrated her vagina with his penis.

The jury invalidated these claims

In her 2022 deposition Carroll said until four or five years prior, the claimed encounter with Trump in 1996 had "no effect" at all on her life, but then sometime around 2017-2018 (which would've been the time she was writing the book) she realized it destroyed her romantic life

For all those years when she says the alleged incident had no effect at all on her, from roughly 1996 through 2018, she was writing the Elle magazine advice column focused romantic issues, and publishing books like this 2004 guide on how women can find "Mr. Right"

Interesting

When she upgraded her lawsuit last fall to include charges of battery, she hailed it as a collective victory for all women who've ever been victims. During the trial she said she was motivated by MeToo to go public with the story, which she said had no effect on her life pre-2017

During public appearances promoting her book when it came out in 2019, Carroll said repeatedly that she was opting not to describe the incident as a "rape." But here's how the incident is characterized in the 2022 version of her lawsuit

If someone files a lawsuit whose very first line accuses someone else of rape, and the jury rejects the accusation, it sure seems strange to call that a "vindication"

Here's a sample of Carroll's regular Elle columns from the pre-2017 times when she says the alleged Trump incident was having no effect at all on her life. Highlights include "How Do I Compete With My Gorgeous, Guy-Magnet Friend?" and "My Boyfriend Wants Me to Shave Down There"

Similar themes continued into the period where she says she had a revelation about the 1996 incident with Trump ruining her romantic life. Highlights include "My Husband Is Sleeping with My Mother" and "My Husband Said I Look Older Than My Older Sister"

Ahead the 2016 election she took a break from covering topics like "My Good Looks Are an Obstacle in the Workplace" and to encourage readers make sure to get out and vote for Hillary to prevent the world from ending

She also wrote it was "crazy not to be obsessed" with the 2016 election, and encouraged readers to register voters and get them to the polls for Hillary -- whom she likened to figures in Greek mythology such as Aphrodite and Helen of Troy, declaring her "Hillary of Trouser Suits"