Judge rejects Trump’s bid to have $10m E. Jean Carroll lawsuit tossed

A federal judge has denied former President Trump’s request for columnist E. Jean Carroll’s $10 million libel lawsuit.

The ex-president had claimed that absolute presidential immunity and free speech protected him from the writer’s claims that he defamed her in comments he made before and after she passed a $5 million sexual assault and defamation judgment against him last month. had won.

But Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled on Thursday that Trump gave up absolute presidential immunity as a defense by not asserting it this year, when the lawsuit was first filed. It has been delayed in recent months as appeals courts considered the legal issues surrounding it.

He also argued that many of Trump’s statements about Carroll were opinions and thus not protected under the First Amendment.

‘Mr. Trump not only denied Ms. Carroll’s allegation of sexual assault,” Kaplan wrote in his statement.

“Instead, he accused Ms. Carroll of lying that he had sexually assaulted her in order to increase sales of her book, gain publicity, and/or further a political agenda.”

The former Elle writer, pictured arriving in federal court in Manhattan in a separate case against the former president last month, claims he defamed her in comments he made before and after she was sentenced to $5 million for sexual assault. and slander had won against him

In his 46-page decision, Kaplan said Trump had waited too long to raise the absolute immunity defense, and it would be unfair to Carroll to let him do so now and further delay the 3.5-year-old case.

The federal judge noted that he took into account that Carroll is now 79 years old and has been filing claims against Trump for 3 1/2 years.

Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that Trump did not invoke presidential immunity early enough and that his comments were not protected under the First Amendment

“There is no basis for risking further prolonging the resolution of this process by allowing Mr. Trump to raise his absolute immunity defense now at the eleventh hour when he could have done so years ago,” he said.

He went on to explain that the main purpose of presidential immunity was to prevent the president from being distracted from public duties.

It is not, he said, an “out-of-the-damage liability-free card” that allows the president to say or do anything he or she pleases, even if that behavior is completely unrelated to official office.

The judge went on to say that Trump’s criticism of Carroll went beyond “the outer fringe of his official duties” as president.

‘Mr. Trump makes no connection whatsoever between the allegedly defamatory content of his statements — that Ms. Carroll fabricated her sexual assault allegation and did so for financial and personal gain — with any official responsibility on the part of the president,” Kaplan wrote. “The court can’t think of any.”

Kaplan also rejected Trump’s claim that the former Elle magazine columnist “agreed” his statements by deliberately delaying disclosure for decades until he was in the White House, leaving him “no choice” but to defend himself .

The former president, pictured Tuesday at his campaign headquarters in New Hampshire, now opposes Carroll

Carroll left court beaming from ear to ear after the jury found Trump liable for libel and sexual assault last month

She was previously seen in court bowing her head as the verdict in the battery charge was read. As the libel sentence was read, she bowed it again and nodded in agreement

In dismissing claims that Carroll’s lawsuit was about protected speech, Kaplan explained how libel and defamation cases are handled in the courts and why Trump’s statements could be construed as meeting the legal definition of defamation, including that a jury had already found it so.

The Manhattan jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages in a sexual assault and defamation lawsuit filed last November after the state of New York temporarily passed a law allowing victims of sexual assault to sue for damages resulting from assaults committed even decades earlier.

In the aftermath, Trump doubled down on his comments about Carroll in a CNN town hall — prompting her to file new defamation claims in her 2020 lawsuit.

The former president called his accuser a “crazy man”.

He also mocked her “hanky panky” and “phony” accusations, claiming the judge barred his legal team from introducing evidence that Carroll called her husband a “monkey” and had a cat named “Vagina.”

Many of Trump’s city hall claims echoed those he made while president in 2019, when Carroll published a memoir in which she alleged that Trump raped her in the dressing room of an upscale Midtown Manhattan department store in the spring of 1996 .

Within hours of excerpts from the book being published in a magazine, Trump denied that a rape had taken place or that he ever knew Carroll — claiming she made it all up to boost book sales.

At a CNN town hall after the decision, Trump called Carroll a ‘crazy nut’

In a statement, attorney Robbie Kaplan, who is representing Carroll in the lawsuit and is not related to the judge, said Thursday night’s ruling “confirms that Donald Trump’s supposed defense against E. Jean Carroll’s defamation claims is ineffective.” .’

She added: “Today’s decision removes another impediment to the January 15 trial of E Jean’s defamation damages in this case.”

But Alina Habba, a Trump attorney, said: “We disagree with the court’s decision and will take appropriate steps to preserve all viable defenses.”

The former president is also contradicts Carroll, alleging that she defamed him in a CNN interview just one day after the May 9 verdict by saying, “oh yes, he did, oh yes, he did,” when asked about the jury’s finding that he had not committed rape.

Carroll’s original lawsuit is now scheduled for trial on January 15, 2024.