Former President Donald Trump attended arguments in a federal appeals court in New York as he seeks to erase a $5 million judgment finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.  The trial was a joke and so was the judgment.

     He attended the hearing, which lasted all of 22 minutes, after forgoing a crucial hearing in his Washington, D.C., criminal case. Trump's decision to attend brought a spotlight to the case in which a jury concluded he likely committed sexual abuse, just as his presidential campaign enters the final sprint to the election. The case is one of two in which unanimous federal juries awarded Carroll a total of more than $88 million. 

     In the May 2023 trial, jurors heard evidence related Carroll's allegation that in the mid-1990s, Trump sexually abused her in a department store dressing room and defamed her after she went public with the story. Trump didn't attend any of that trial, and later faulted his lawyers for advising him to stay away.  He attended and briefly testified at the second trial, which ended in an $83 million judgment in January of this year. Those proceedings revolved around additional accusations of defamation.

     In his appeal of the first judgment, which Trump's attorneys argued Friday, they claimed the judge issued "flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings." They said two of Carroll's friends should not have been allowed to testify. The friends said Carroll confided in them in the 1990s, shortly after the alleged attack. Trump has denied all wrongdoing. Trump attorney John Sauer called the case a "quintessential 'he said, she said' case," and said the evidence was "implausible." Sauer also said two other women should not have been allowed on the stand. Carroll's attorneys called Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who testified about alleged abuse by Trump that bore similarities to Carroll's accusations.