STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
In denying E. Jean Carroll's accusations, the president once said she was, quote, "not my type." Carroll later used his quote as a title for a book. Our next guest is part of Carroll's story. George Conway is a lawyer, once married to Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway. He was a Republican who became a Trump critic and is now running for Congress in New York as a Democrat. Mr. Conway, welcome.
GEORGE CONWAY: Hi. Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: E. Jean Carroll sued Trump twice and won twice. What role did you play in that?
CONWAY: Well, when she first came out with her book and it was excerpted in New York Magazine, I wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post saying that her story seemed quite credible. And more credible than the story of Juanita Broaddrick, whose case Donald Trump had championed during the 2016 campaign. And then, serendipitously, I ran into her at an event in New York City. And she walked up to me, thanked me for the op-ed and the support, and asked me, do you think I should sue? Do you think I have a claim?
And I said, yes, you do, because even though the statute of limitations had run on any criminal prosecution for Trump's assault of E. Jean Carroll, he had basically said she was a liar and said he didn't know her. And that was defamatory. And I said, I know the precise - I know the lawyer who could bring that case. And I recommended to her Robbie Kaplan, a friend of mine who won the DOMA - the Defensive of Marriage Act case in the Supreme Court, U.S. v. Windsor. And I put them together in the next morning in an email. And the rest is history.
INSKEEP: I just want to acknowledge for people listening, your dog is part of this discussion, which is totally fine.
CONWAY: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: We also heard some kind of semitruck horn out there because you're in Manhattan.
CONWAY: Yes.
INSKEEP: The area where you want to represent in Congress.
CONWAY: Yes. Yes, yes.
INSKEEP: OK. So you mentioned specifically Jean Carroll's lawyer, Robbie Kaplan. It's the payment for her legal team that seems to be at the center of this Justice Department investigation of some kind. Were you aware that Reid Hoffman was paying the bills, and does it matter that he paid the bills?
CONWAY: It doesn't matter that he paid the bills. At some point, I became aware of that. But I wasn't aware of it until very, very much later. And it doesn't really matter because what happens in lawsuits like this is when you have an individual who doesn't have the money to file a big claim, and who's suing somebody who has a lot of money - whether it be a corporation or an individual - the lawyer either has to finance it as a contingency fee, which is normal, or the lawyer can share the risk, offload the risk by entering into a litigation funding agreement with somebody else.
All the client cares about is whether or not she has to put money out herself. And that's all. And that's exactly what the Court of Appeals held. It doesn't make any sense that she would lie about that. And frankly, the lawyers - her lawyers corrected the mistake in the deposition before well before the trial. And it had nothing to do with the evidence that was presented at trial on the question of the underlying event because Donald Trump refused to testify. He was too scared to testify. So there was really no factual dispute at the trial of any serious - in any serious way about what happened at Bergdorf Goodman.
INSKEEP: Now, Ryan Lucas mentioned the cost of defending yourself, which is the situation that Carroll might find herself in or that Reid Hoffman seems to find himself in. There's some kind of investigation. How can people targeted by Trump manage that?
CONWAY: It's very difficult. This is exactly the coercive effect that he seeks to create by encouraging the Justice Department to bring baseless allegations and baseless cases against people. They do have to defend themselves, even from frivolous cases. It requires lawyer. It requires people to respond to subpoenas and to review documents and to produce them to a grand jury. And that is quite - you know, that can be quite daunting for people.
And I think the answer is that we have to have more volunteer lawyers. And there are some amazing volunteers. There are huge crews of volunteer effort, of pro bono resources that are now available. But, you know, they're not available to everyone. But they're available, certainly, in the case of a high-profile case like this. She's going to receive - I'm sure she's going to receive a lot of help. But still, it's scary for people. And it's costly.
INSKEEP: Just got about 20 seconds. But give me the one-sentence explanation. Why are you a Democrat now and running for Congress?
CONWAY: Because the Democratic Party is the only political party in the country that cares about what people - how people are and what they're doing and cares about - and wants - is not a political cult like the Republican Party. So that's basically it.
INSKEEP: George Conway, who's running for Congress in Manhattan, pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much.
CONWAY: Thanks. Great. Bye, bye. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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