Washington.- When Alvin L. Bragg announced the impeachment of former President Donald J. Trump, he galvanized Trump supporters. Allies of his Republican rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, mark that impeachment as the moment Trump moved swiftly away from his closest opponent in the polls.
No one around Trump is making a public or private prediction that there will be a similar effect after a jury Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
The price the jury ordered Trump to pay his accuser, Ms. Carroll, was $5 million, in a verdict he vowed to appeal. But it is not clear if he will pay any political price. Trump was said to have been furious at the verdict and questioned the various decisions made by his defense team. Far from accepting the verdict in Carroll’s favor, her team plans to aggressively attack her claims and tie her to the Democrats.
There is no world in which the outcome of that civil trial has been anything positive for the project Trump is most focused on: the presidential campaign in which he remains the Republican favorite.
