Trump seeks to delay E. Jean Carroll defamation trial to potentially seek Supreme Court review after claiming writer was ‘not my type’ and fabricated rape claims

Donald Trump is seeking to delay his defamation lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, so he can consider other legal action.

In a motion filed by his attorney Thursday, they asked an appeals court to delay the proceedings so they could consider their appeal options.

Trump's attorneys wrote, “The requested stays are necessary and appropriate to afford President Trump the opportunity to fully challenge his right to an immunity defense in the underlying proceeding, including pursuing an appeal to the Supreme Court if necessary.”

Their response came after an appeals court ruled last week that Trump cannot assert presidential immunity in the lawsuit filed by Carroll.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld a federal judge's decision to reject Trump's claim of immunity, finding he waited too long to raise it as a defense.

E. Jean Carroll leaves Manhattan federal court in New York on Tuesday, May 9, 2023

Alina Habba, one of Trump's lawyers in the case, called the ruling “fundamentally flawed” and said Trump would seek “immediate review” from the Supreme Court.

His attorney's response added: “The importance of these issues is illustrated, among other things, by the documents filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith with the Supreme Court last week regarding President Trump's challenge to presidential immunity arising from a criminal case in the District of Columbia.”

Carroll, 80, is seeking at least $10 million in damages from Trump over comments he made in June 2019, when he was president, after she first publicly accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s in Manhattan.

Trump denied knowing Carroll, saying she wasn't his “type,” and that she made up the rape claim to promote her upcoming memoir.

The former Elle magazine columnist sued in November 2019, but Trump waited until December 2022 before claiming that absolute presidential immunity protected him from her lawsuit.

Under this, a president has complete immunity from many types of civil lawsuits while in office.

In June, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan rejected Trump's bid to dismiss Carroll's case and later declined to let Trump raise an immunity defense, citing the delay in invoking it and the public interest in liability.

A three-judge panel ruled that these decisions were correct and that “a three-year delay, under our precedents, is more than sufficient to qualify as 'unjustified.'

Trump's appeal was heard on an expedited basis, ahead of a scheduled trial in January 2024.

Carroll, 80, is seeking at least $10 million in damages from Trump over comments he made in June 2019

Trump also claimed to have never met Carroll. He is seen above with Carroll and her then-husband John Johnson alongside his then-wife Ivana at a 1987 event

He has raised a similar immunity defense in his federal criminal case in Washington, in which he is accused of unlawfully trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.

On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected a request from special counsel Jack Smith to expedite arguments on whether Trump has immunity from federal prosecution.

The justices dealt a blow to Smith by rejecting his attempt to bypass a lower appeals court and expedite a ruling on the former president's claim of immunity in the Jan. 6 case.

Trump, 77, has argued that the case should be dismissed because former presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted for conduct related to their official responsibilities.

The decision is a victory for the Republican presidential candidate and raises the possibility that it will delay his federal election interference trial, which is set to start on March 4.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to immediately rule on former President Donald Trump's claim that he cannot be prosecuted for trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, allowing a lower court to investigate the issue further.

Special counsel Jack Smith has claimed that Trump's legal team is trying to delay the federal election interference trial until after the November presidential election. The timeline for his case is now in jeopardy

The judges, three of whom were appointed by Trump, will also hear the Colorado case on whether he can be kicked off the ballot for being an “insurrectionist.”

Carroll has already won one civil lawsuit against Trump. In May, a jury in a second trial awarded her $5 million for sexual assault and defamation after Trump again denied her allegations last October. Trump will appeal that verdict.

In July, a federal judge found Trump guilty of raping Carroll in the ordinary sense of the word, and rejected his request for a new trial.

On September 6, Kaplan ruled that the jury's findings in May applied to Carroll's first lawsuit, rendering Trump's denial defamatory.

That left only the question of how much money Trump would have to pay Carroll in damages.