'Bulletproof' opinion by E. Jean Carroll judge likely sealed Trump’s fate: legal expert

If a Manhattan jury sides with writer E. Jean Carroll in her defamation and rape civil lawsuit filed against Donald Trump, her lawyers can thank Judge Lewis A. Kaplan for a 23-page opinion he authored, according to one former federal prosecutor.

In a column for MSNBC, Carol Lam, a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of California, explained that Carroll's case -- which hinged on a "he said, she said" recollections about an assault decades ago -- was bolstered by testimony by other women who have also claimed to be victims of the former president's assaults.

And it was Judge Kaplan who paved the way to allow them to speak in the civil trial, wrote Lam.

Pointing out that two of the women's testimony was "important corroboration of Carroll’s testimony — that is, it was introduced to show that the rape allegation was not a recent fabrication," Lam added, "But Judge Kaplan’s more fraught decision was whether to allow Carroll’s legal team to introduce evidence from two other witnesses: Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff."

Writing, "Kaplan ruled that Leeds, who said Trump sexually attacked her when she was seated next to him on a plane, and Stoynoff, a reporter for People magazine who said Trump sexually assaulted her while she was at Mar-a-Lago covering a story, should be allowed to testify," the former federal prosecutor added, "... in this case, Carroll’s lawyers had an advantage. This is a civil case alleging rape, and a federal rule of evidence, passed in 1994, explicitly says that “in a civil case alleging sexual assault, the court may admit evidence that the party committed any other sexual assault.”

Lam also noted that Kaplan's ruling is "bulletproof" shoud the former president's lawyers attempt to appeal a guilty verdict -- which is expected.

"An appeals court could still find that Kaplan did not appropriately weight the probative value of Leeds’ and Staynoff’s testimony against the prejudicial nature of their evidence," she wrote before predicting, "But, given that only two women out of many testified to Trump’s similar sexual aggressions in the past and given Kaplan’s carefully written analysis of the probative nature of the evidence, it is likely that his decision will hold up if Trump is found liable and there is an appeal."