George Conway Weighs In on What Trump Verdict Means for 2024

George Conway, the co-founder of anti-Trump political action committee The Lincoln Project, has reflected on how Donald Trump supporters will react to the conclusion of the E. Jean Carroll case.

Conway said that Trump supporters would be "enabling and endorsing a monster" if they failed to address the possibility Trump had lied and was guilty of wrongdoing.

On Tuesday a Manhattan jury found former President Trump liable of sexually assaulting Carroll as part of a battery and defamation lawsuit filed by the one-time Elle columnist.

The nine-person jury made the decision in less than three hours, reaching a mixed verdict that did not include a rape conviction. Carroll was also awarded $5 million in total damages for her claims against Trump, with $2 million in compensatory damages for the battery claim.

The jury also determined that Trump defamed Carroll when he called her allegations a "con job" in an October 2022 Truth Social post. Closing arguments occurred Monday.

Trump issued a two-sentence, all-caps rebuttal to the conviction on his Truth Social account: "I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"

During the court case Carroll said that she was encouraged to take legal action and sue Donald Trump for rape by Conway.

She said she met Conway after Trump publicly called her a liar and the pair discussed the differences of criminal and civil cases.

She noted that Conway said she should seriously consider this and two days later Carroll filed her first lawsuit against Trump for defamation.

Speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, Conway addressed how this could potentially impact Trump's presidential chances in 2024 and how his fanbase would react.

Conway warned that Trump's base would inevitably argue the verdict was part of a wider conspiracy to bring down Trump rather than consider the possibility he has done anything wrong.

Cooper said: "Do you think the verdict plays a role in how he does in the campaign for the nomination? Do you think it affects that?"

Conway replied: "Like everything else involving Donald Trump, it cuts both ways. I think to the people who support him, they will simply dismiss it as a conspiracy led by the litigation, or me, or you, or CNN, or Jean Carroll, or Jean Carroll's lawyers.

"Another attempt to get Donald Trump. And they never really ask themselves, wait a minute, how is it possible for any one person to get into this many scrapes and have that many people say the same thing about him, about his dishonesty and his lying and sexual predation, and never ask themselves, 'is there something to this?'

"Because they can't do that. They can't bring themselves to do that. If they do that then they have to admit they've been essentially endorsing and enabling a monster."

Trump also raged at the verdict in a video he released that has since gone viral on social media. Since being posted on Twitter by commentator Ron Filipkowski the video has been viewed more than 350,000 times.

In the clip, Trump said: "A Trump-hating, Clinton-appointed judge who went out of his way to make sure the result of this trial was as negative as it could possibly be.

"Speaking to and in control of a jury from an anti-Trump area, which is probably the worst place in the United States for me to get a fair trial.

"We will be appealing this decision, it is a disgrace. I don't even know who this woman is.

"I have no idea who she is, where she came from, this is another scam, a political witch hunt and somehow we are going to have to fight this stuff.

"We cannot let our country go into this abyss, this is disgraceful."

Trump continued to complain about the trial and concluded by saying that the whole thing was a "scam and disgrace" to the United States of America.

Newsweek has contacted Donald Trump via email for comment.