As a study of law, whom once wanted to be a lawyer, but decided to learn to code instead...

Everything about this case was sketchy from the beginning, including the statues of limitations for criminal charges being changed just before the lawsuit, causing Trump to be unable to defend himself in the civil lawsuit, without possibly incriminating himself criminally. He was unable to make an effort to defend himself in this case, but most people don't understand that. This coordinated political effort was pretty disturbing to watch play out.

Yet, let us just focus on the single particular fact:

Did the jury find that Trump raped E. Jean Carroll, even with his finger as she claimed?

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan just tossed a counter claim of Trump's based wholly on this misconception. It explained how the rape accusation was "substantially true" because the jury found that Trump had, by a preponderance of evidence, likely sexually assaulted her, which requires penetration. This makes the "digital" rape implied by the jury's finding.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790/gov.uscourts.nysd.543790.200.0.pdf

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan also declared as a matter of fact, that the jury found Trump to have digitally raped her, also based on the jury's finding that Trump, by a preponderance of evidence, likely sexually assaulted her, pointing out that sexual assault under this jurisdiction requires such.

Yet, we find this does not seem to be true at all, based on Judge Lewis A. Kaplan's lengthy rejection of Trump's motion for a new trial.

Trump filed for a new trial based on the massively excessive monetary awarded by the jury, who was coached to do so by some weird lady that is not licensed or experienced in psychological damages and by virtue of Trumps assertion that the jury found that he did not rape the accuser.

Yet in this lengthy rejection, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan includes her instructions to the jury for each charge. We find that the instructions for sexual assault are not limited to digital rape, as both judges are asserting the jury found implicitly by affirming this liable charge in civil court. Instead, the instructions of Judge Kaplan made it clear that force-able kissing or groping was included as well. Judge Kaplan ignored this and tried to bury the facts when rejecting the new trial motion.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045.212.0_1.pdf

Judge Kaplan, while expressing the jury had found Trump digitally raped the accuser and repeating this assertion many times, then contracts this assertion when providing the court facts. Such as when pointing out that this was a special verdict and no one knows what the Jury found Trump to have done or not done, specifically:

[...] special verdict governed by Rule 49 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The form of the verdict, including the fact that it did not ask the jury to decide exactly what conduct Mr. Trump committed in the event it found for Ms. Carroll as to sexual abuse[...]

This sketchy Judge Kaplan repeats the accusers accusations many times, bloating the ruling with unproven accusations, which had no rebuttal or attempts to defend against due to the circumstances made by changes in the law. This repetition seems an effort by the Judge to emotionally sway the reader and bury the factual details of the case in a flood of bloat.

Judge Kaplan then includes the instructions to the jury for each civil charge. The included instructions for the "sexual abuse" civil accusation, does not limit sexual abuse to digital penetration or any of the other narrow meaning of the New York Penal Law,. The Court instructed the jury to rule in favor of "sexual abuse" when both are found:

. . Sexual contact for this purpose means any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person for the purpose of gratifying the sexual desire of either person. It includes the touching of the actor by the victim, as well as the touching of the victim by the actor, and the touching may be either directly or through clothing.

. . . For this purpose, a ‘sexual part’ is an organ of human reproduction. So far as intimate part is concerned, the law does not specifically define which parts of the body are intimate. Intimacy, moreover, is a function of behavior and not just anatomy. Therefore, if any touching occurred, the manner and circumstances of the touching may inform your determination whether Mr. Trump touched any of Ms. Carroll's intimate parts. You should apply your common sense to determine whether, under general societal norms and considering all the circumstances, any area or areas that Mr. Trump touched, if he touched any, were sufficiently personal or private that it would not have been touched in the absence of a close relationship between the parties.

The judge went on deceptively to include that:

Thus, if the jury found that Mr. Trump penetrated Ms. Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, it was obliged to answer Question 2 “Yes” assuming the other element was satisfied.

Yet, it is obvious that jury instructions about Question 2, "Sexual assault", was in fact not at all limited to finger penetration. Just like the motion for a new trial argued, this jury instruction allows included unwanted groping of the breasts or kissing.

Now, one might be led to dismiss small gaffs of law like this, for someone who this trial seems to show sexually assaulted a woman. One is quick to ignore abuses of justice against someone they have already been gas-lit into believing is a bad person, assuming they deserve it. Yet, the totality of testimony paints that is highly questionable. The accuser had denied this happened at all many times, had changed her story, and had suggested that she led him on and did not say or imply "no" on multiple occasions. These parts of the testimony don't get highlighted.

Coupled with the complete inability to defend himself from these accusations, it seems extremely pertinent that the media and public hold these Judges to an extremely high bar of truthfulness and transparency, as the accused cannot defend himself.