On Thursday, a federal judge rejected Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss the original civil defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the writer who alleges the former president defamed her after she accused him of sexual assault. Trump’s arguments for dismissing the case “are without merit,” wrote Judge Lewis Kaplan in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The ruling followed a series of twists and turns in the long-running legal battle between Trump and Carroll, who claims Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her after telling her story. According to Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, Trump’s defenses against the defamation claim “don’t work.” “Trump chose to waive presidential immunity, and now he must live with the results of that decision,” the attorney said.
On Tuesday, Trump filed a counterclaim against the author, alleging defamation and the dissemination of “false statements” following her accusation that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s in a Manhattan department store. This comes shortly after a jury instructed Trump to pay $5 million in damages in the lawsuit brought against him by Carroll, which included charges of battery and defamation.
Trump’s counterclaim, filed with the Southern District of New York federal court, asserts that Carroll harmed his reputation when she accused him of rape during an interview on CNN. The counterclaim highlights that the jury had unanimously found Trump not liable for rape in the case. According to Trump’s lawyers, Carroll made these false statements with the intent to damage Trump’s reputation, despite them contradicting the jury’s verdict. The counterclaim seeks to challenge the damages awarded to Carroll, demands a retraction of her defamatory statements, and requests compensatory and punitive damages for Trump, along with legal fees.
Carroll initially filed a lawsuit against Trump in 2019. In response to her allegations, Trump stated that Carroll was “not my type” and denied the incident. The lawsuit has undergone multiple appeals. In November 2022, Carroll filed a second lawsuit against Trump, accusing him of battery and defamation under the “Adult Survivor Act.” The jury recently awarded Carroll $5 million in damages, including compensation for sexual abuse and defamation.
Trump’s legal team has deposited the required amount with the court as security while they appeal the verdict. Trump has also requested a new trial, contending that the damages awarded are excessively high. Additionally, the Judge allowed Carroll to change her legal theory supporting the defamation case “at the eleventh hour” to conform to the jury verdict. Carroll sought to amend the defamation lawsuit after Trump told a White House reporter that the rape never happened and that Carroll was not his “type.” The revision sought to incorporate the jury verdict and insults Trump lobbed a day later in a CNN town hall, where he called Carroll’s account “fake” and labeled her a “whack job.” The amendment allows Carroll to seek more money in damages.