Trump lawyers want him back on witness stand in E. Jean Carroll case
NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s lawyers said Tuesday that the ex-president deserves a new trial and another chance to tell a jury why he berated writer E. Jean Carroll over her sexual abuse claims against him after she made them five years ago revealed.
The lawyers made the claim when they rechallenged the $83.3 million award that a Manhattan jury awarded to Carroll in January.
The award rose to $88.3 million, which Trump owes Carroll after another jury last May awarded the longtime advice columnist $5 million after concluding that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in downtown Manhattan and then defamed her with comments in October 2022.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan had ordered the January jury to accept the earlier jury’s findings and only decide how much Trump owed Carroll for two statements he made in 2019 after excerpts from Carroll’s memoir were published by a magazine. Carroll testified that the comments ruined her career and left her fearing for her life after receiving threats from strangers online.
Trump did not attend the trial in May, but was a fixture at the trial this year. He shook his head repeatedly and grumbled so loudly from his seat at the defense table that a prosecutor complained that jurors could hear him.
Kaplan, who threatened to ban him from the courtroom, severely limited the testimony of the Republican frontrunner for president. Trump’s complaints about the 80-year-old Carroll continued during the trial on the campaign trail, providing Carroll’s lawyers with new evidence to show jurors.
“This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and therefore a new trial is warranted,” the lawyers wrote.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump deserves to explain why he spoke that way about Carroll.
The lawyers wrote that Trump had a series of compelling reasons to publicly deny Carroll’s claims.
“Indeed, it is virtually inconceivable that President Trump’s ‘sole’ and ‘only’ motive for making the impugned statements was simply to harm Plaintiff – rather than to defend his reputation, protect his family and his Presidency,” they said.
In 2019, Trump mocked Carroll, saying she “completely lied” to sell a memoir and that he had never met her, although a 1987 photo showed them and their then-husbands at a social event. He said the photo captured a moment when he was standing in a line. He also called Carroll a “whack job” and said she wasn’t “his type,” a reference that Carroll testified was meant to imply she was too ugly to rape.
An attorney for Carroll did not immediately return a message seeking comment.