In a truly unhinged interview with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow a week and a half ago, E. Jean Carroll’s #MeToo lawyer teased new legal action to collect even more money on behalf of her client due to what she framed as further defamation following the recent New York jury award for defamation.
Via CNN:
E. Jean Carroll has asked a judge to amend her initial defamation case against former President Donald Trump to seek additional punitive damages after he repeated his statements at a CNN town hall.
The request was made in a letter to the judge seeking clarity on the initial lawsuit following a civil jury verdict earlier this month finding Trump sexually abused Carroll and awarding her $5 million.
Carroll’s attorneys said Trump’s defamatory statements repeated during the town hall earlier this month go directly to the issue of punitive damages, which are intended to punish the person found liable.
Carroll’s initial lawsuit was held up on appeal and relates to statements Trump made in 2019 while he was president. The trial involved a statement Trump made in 2022.
An appeals court sent the initial lawsuit back to the lower court judge just before the trial. It is up to the judge to determine whether it moves forward.
Carroll has alleged that the former president raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book.
This is a ridiculous stretch of the “defamation” designation to refer to claims of innocence as defamation. As far as I know, people convicted of either criminal or civil offenses are allowed in the United States to maintain their innocence. How this idea is even entertained by the courts is a travesty of justice.
It’s unclear – and none of the corporate state media reports bother to specify – what exactly Trump said that was legally defamatory about her at his CNN town hall event. Reading the transcript, his comments (which are answers prompted by the moderator’s questions, by the way) appear to be a combination of his denial of the rape accusations with a lot of generic (and objectively true) observations about E. Jean Carroll’s highly questionable character.
Via the CNN transcript of the event:
TRUMP: In Washington, D.C., you cannot get a fair trial, you cannot. Just like in New York City, you can’t get a fair trial either.
COLLINS: Speaking of New York, I want to ask you about a significant verdict that was reached yesterday. I know this is something you want to weigh in on as well.
A Manhattan jury found –
TRUMP: Sure.
COLLINS: – that you sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll and defamed her.
You’ve denied this.
But what do you say to voters who say it disqualifies you from being president?
TRUMP: Well, there weren’t too many of them because my poll numbers just came out. They went up, okay?
I think – I think I’m – I’m the only person in history who had a charge like that, and usually you leave office and you say, I’m sorry but I’m going to back home – I’m back home to my family and everything. I’m going to be resigned.
My poll numbers went up and they went up with the other fake charge, too, because what’s happening is they’re doing this for election interference.
This woman, I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is. I had a picture taken years ago with her and her husband, nice guy John Johnson.
He was a newscaster, very nice man. She called him an ape, happens to be African-American. Called him an ape – the judge wouldn’t allow us to put that in.
Her dog or her cat was named vagina, the judge wouldn’t allow to put that in. All these things, he – but with her, they can put in anything, “Access Hollywood” –
COLLINS: This was a jury of nine people who found you –
TRUMP: That’s right.
COLLINS: – liable of sexual abuse. Do you think that – that will deter women from voting for you?
TRUMP: No, I don’t think so because I think the whole thing – just so you understand – ready?
I never met this woman. I never saw this woman. This woman said I met her at the front door of Bergdorf Goodman which I never go into other than for a couple of charities. I met her in the front door. She was about 60 years. This is like 22, 23 years ago.
I met her in the front door of Bergdorf Goodman. I was immediately attracted to her and she was immediately attracted to me. And we had this great chemistry.
We’re walking into a crowded department store. We had this great chemistry. And a few minutes later, we end up in a room, a dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, right near the cash register.
And then she found out that there were locks in the door. She said, I found one that was open. She found one, she learned this at trial. She found one that was open.
What kind of a woman meet somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, okay? I don’t know if she was married then or not. John Johnson, I feel sorry for you, John Johnson.
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