Trump labelled ‘nonstop liar' in closing arguments of journalist's rape lawsuit

"Nonstop liar", an abuser with a "modus operandi". These were the words that a New York jury heard on Monday as part of the closing arguments of American journalist E Jean Carroll's lawsuit against former US President Donald Trump. Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer who is fighting in court for Caroll's rape allegation against Trump, told jurors that the erstwhile president's only defence to the alleged sexual assault of her client at a department store dressing room in New York in 1996 is that everyone else involved in the case is “lying about everything".

“In order to find for him you have to find that Donald Trump, the nonstop liar, is the only one in this court telling the truth,” she said, according to The Guardian. The attorney said that Trump is a perpetual liar who damaged Carroll’s reputation to save his own. She then told jurors that they could either trust the evidence of Caroll's ten witnesses, or the politician's refusal to give a testimony.

E Jean Carroll's lawyer demands court to hold Trump accountable

The jury, which is likely to start considering its final verdict on Tuesday, saw a bustling courtroom with one woman stopped from entering it for wearing an “Arrest Trump” shirt. It also heard Kaplan emphasising that “no one, not even a former president, is above the law".

“You must hold him to account in this court for what he has done," the lawyer said, adding that her client is only one of the many women who have been attacked or inappropriately approached by Trump who has a “modus operandi” of charming and then assaulting them.

According to Kaplan, Trump is his own worst enemy in the case. “In a very real sense, Donald Trump is a witness against himself,” she said, referring to the ex-president's justification that Caroll was not his "type". “In other words, ‘she wasn’t attractive enough for me to sexually assault,’”  Kaplan said of Trump.