Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll is set to take stand today in NYC trial as she seeks more than $10M in damages after jury found him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming her using 'the world's biggest microphone'

Writer E. Jean Carroll will take the stand on Wednesday to describe how using 'the world's biggest microphone' former President Donald Trump defamed her during his time in the White House. 

Carroll is due to testify Wednesday in the second federal civil trial over her claims against Trump, who denies them all. 

Because the first jury found that Trump sexually abused Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her in 2022, the new trial concerns only her for some other remarks. He made them while he was president.

Trump, who is juggling court appearances with campaign stops as he leads the Republican field in this year's presidential race, sat in on jury selection Tuesday. Before opening statements began, he left for a New Hampshire rally.

Subsequently, Trump's lawyer contended that Carroll has never been more famous and that she is blaming him for 'a few mean tweets from Twitter trolls.'  

E. Jean Carroll watches as her lawyer Shawn Crowley opens in the second civil trial after Carroll accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago

In this courtroom sketch, E. Jean Carroll, right, turns around towards former President Donald Trump

People hold signs outside the Manhattan federal court in New York in support of E. Jean Carroll's allegations

Meanwhile, Trump declared on social media Tuesday that the case was nothing but 'fabricated lies and political shenanigans' that had garnered his accuser money and fame.

'I am the only one injured by this attempted EXTORTION,' read a post on his Truth Social platform.

But Carroll, an advice columnist and magazine writer, has said that Trump harmed her deeply. First, she claims, he forced himself on her in a dressing room after a chance meeting at a luxury department store in 1996. 

Then he publicly impugned her honesty, her motives and even her sanity after she told the story publicly in a 2019 memoir.

'He called me a liar repeatedly, and it really has decimated my reputation. I am a journalist. The one thing I have to have is the trust of the readers,' she testified in April at the first trial. 'I am no longer believed.'

Carroll has maintained she lost millions of readers and her longtime gig at Elle magazine, where her 'Ask E. Jean' advice column ran for over a quarter-century, because of her allegations and Trump's reaction to them. 

Elle has said her contract wasn't renewed for unrelated reasons.

One of Carroll's lawyers, Shawn Crowley, said in her opening statement that the writer also received violent threats from Trump backers.

In this courtroom sketch, prospective jurors file into the courtroom as Donald Trump, third left, stands surrounded by his defense team. Alina Habba, fourth left, Trump's lead defense attorney, stands beside him. E. Jean Carroll, background second from right, stands with her attorney Roberta Kaplan, Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024, in New York

Former U.S. President Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll and their lawyers stand for the jury as they attend jury selection

E Jean Carroll arrives for her defamation trial against Former President Donald Trump at New York Federal Court on January 16, 2024 in New York City

Trump attorney Alina Habba countered that Carroll was seeking to hold the former president accountable for 'a few mean tweets from Twitter trolls.' He was 'merely defending himself' in his comments about his accuser, Habba said in her opening.

Trump asserts that nothing ever happened between him and Carroll, indeed that he has never even met her. There's a 1987 party photo of them and their then-spouses, but Trump says it was a momentary greeting that 'doesn't count.'

Trump did not attend the previous trial in the case last May, when a jury found he had sexually abused and defamed Carroll and $5 million damages. The jury said, however, that Carroll hadn't proven her claim that Trump raped her.

Carroll is now seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and millions more in punitive damages.