The Trump Sexual-Assault Verdict

There is a murkiness to a Manhattan federal jury’s head-spinningly quick verdict finding Donald Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation against the former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll.

The jury did not find, even on the modest “preponderance of the evidence” standard applicable in civil cases, that Trump raped Carroll — meaning forcible intercourse — as she alleged. She said the assault happened approximately 27 years ago in a lingerie-section changing room at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in midtown Manhattan. Yet the jury did find that Trump sexually abused and forcibly touched Carroll, which...