Donald Trump loses Carroll’s defamation claim: In addition to his recent indictments, the former president got more bad news in court this week.
Donald Trump: He Lost Again in Court
Former President Donald Trump has already been indicted three times this year, and that’s if you don’t include the superseding indictment in one of those cases, and he faces one more, in Georgia. But that might not be the most damaging of Trump’s legal troubles.
Back in May, a jury found that the former president had been sexually abused and defamed E. Jean Carroll, the woman who alleged that Trump had raped her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. While the jury had stopped short of concluding that Trump had raped Carroll, it was still a monumental verdict.
The case is ongoing, with Carroll actually filing additional claims after Trump made comments about her in his CNN town hall the same week of the verdict. Trump, meanwhile, has countersued.
However, a judge this week dismissed Trump’s claim.
According to Reuters, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who had presided over the trial this spring, dismissed Trump’s counterclaim against Carroll, which he had filed after Carroll’s amended claim after the CNN comments.
Carroll’s statement, Judge Kaplan said, was “substantially true.”
“Indeed, the jury’s verdict in Carroll II establishes, as against Mr Trump, the fact that Mr Trump ‘raped her’, albeit digitally rather than with his *****. Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms Carroll’s ‘rape’ accusations,” Kaplan said in his ruling, per CNN.
“We strongly disagree with the flawed decision and will be filing an appeal shortly,” Trump attorney Alina Habba said, per Reuters.
That case is scheduled to go to trial on January 15 of next year which, barring delays, will be part of a crowded schedule of trials for the former president in 2024, while he’ll also be attempting to regain the presidency.
According to the New York Times, Trump’s trial schedule, starting later this year, is very crowded.
“Mr. Trump is facing a state trial on civil fraud accusations in New York in October. Another trial on whether he defamed the writer E. Jean Carroll is set to open on Jan. 15 — the same day as the Iowa caucuses,” the Times said. “On Jan. 29, a trial begins in yet another lawsuit, this one accusing Mr. Trump, his company, and three of his children of using the family name to entice vulnerable people to invest in sham business opportunities.”
The trial for Trump’s case in New York, in which he is accused of falsifying documents, is set to begin in late March of 2024.
Per NBC News, Special Counsel Jack Smith would like to begin the trial of Trump, in the documents case, before the end of 2023, with an official trial date to be determined before the end of this month. Trump’s attorneys, however, would like more time to pass before such a trial, with the implied goal of delaying the case until after the 2024 election.
“In order to have an understanding of length of trial and also the time to prepare, what we would need from the government is an understanding of the magnitude of discovery; the amount of electronic data that we would be expected to look through; the amount of hard copy documents that might be in existence; but most importantly, the degree to which there’s exculpatory information on behalf of the President,” Trump’s attorney, John Lauro, said in an interview over the weekend, as reported by NBC News. Lauro appeared on all of the major Sunday shows last weekend.
It remains unclear when a trial would take place in Trump’s other federal case, involving his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. And Trump still faces potential criminal charges in Georgia.
Trump did not attend the first trial of Carroll’s case against him earlier this year, but more leeway is granted in civil cases, such as that one. In criminal trials, however, the defendant is almost always required to be present in the courtroom.
Expertise and Experience
Stephen Silver is a Senior Editor for 19FortyFive. He is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.
