Trump found liable for sexual battery, defamation

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Writer E. Jean Carroll sought on Monday to amend the first of her two defamation lawsuits against Donald Trump to demand at least $10 million in additional damages, citing comments he made on CNN after a jury found him liable for sexually abusing her.

On Monday, Carroll's lawyers pointed to Trump's posts on Truth Social calling the verdict a "disgrace" and criticism of Carroll on CNN on May 10 in arguing that she should be allowed to amend her earlier lawsuit, which alleges Trump defamed her by denying the incident in 2019 comments, while he was president.

"Trump's defamatory statements post-verdict show the depth of his malice toward Carroll since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will or spite," her lawyers wrote. "This conduct supports a very substantial punitive damages award."

During a CNN town hall the day after the verdict, Trump said he "never met this woman" and called Carroll's account a "fake," "made up story" invented by a "whack job." Those statements are the basis of Carroll's new filings.

Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, filed her second lawsuit for both defamation and battery after New York passed a law giving sexual assault victims a new window to sue even if the statute of limitations had passed.

Her original Nov 2019 lawsuit has been bogged down in appeals over whether Trump was immune from being sued because he had been president when he spoke.

Carroll's lawyers said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday that because Trump's alleged defamatory statements were essentially the same, the only open issues are whether he was immune for making the first statement, and if not what damages he owes.

That's a problem, but not because the old lady with the McCoffee got more. It's a problem that such a limit can apply when the costs and other damages might greatly exceed it.

I know.
It would be the same if I had been paralysed or spent the rest of my life in a wheelchair.
It's shameful that some people's treatment costs more than what they win.
At one point I was going to need surgical revisions in another country. That cost alone would have exceeded my maximum award.

E. Jean Carroll, the former columnist who won a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation case against former President Donald Trump, will be allowed to amend her initial 2019 lawsuit in pursuit of millions more in damages, a federal judge ruled Tuesday.

Carroll’s lawyers filed the amended lawsuit in a New York court last month after Trump continued to verbally attack Carroll during a CNN town hall one day after the verdict was announced in the case.

“I have no idea who this woman [is],” Trump said during the presidential town hall, calling her claims “a fake story, made up story” and referring to Carroll as a “whack job.”

The amended lawsuit is separate from the one tried last month, in which Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

A trial has been delayed for the initial lawsuit, as courts weigh whether Trump can be sued in his personal capacity over comments he made while president. On Tuesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan called on the Justice Department to make that determination by July 13.

“We look forward to moving ahead expeditiously on E. Jean Carroll’s remaining claims,” Robbie Kaplan, an attorney for Carroll, told POLITICO.

A federal judge on Thursday set E. Jean Carroll's second defamation trial against former President Donald Trump for early next year.

In a brief scheduling order, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the civil trial will commence on Jan. 15.

The Justice Department has abandoned plans to defend Donald Trump in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, saying in a court filing Tuesday that it no longer believes he was acting within the scope of his presidential duties in 2019 when he allegedly defamed her while denying her rape accusation.

The "Department has determined that there is no longer a sufficient basis to conclude that the former President was motivated by 'more than an insignificant' desire to serve the United States Government" when he disparaged Carroll in remarks to reporters four years ago.

In a letter Tuesday to lawyers involved in the case, the Justice Department said it had changed its position given new evidence, including a jury verdict this year that found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll and defamatory comments he made about her after he left the White House.

The reversal lessens Trump’s chances of escaping liability in Carroll’s remaining lawsuit against him.

After Donald Trump was found liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll, his legal team and his defenders lodged a frequent talking point.

Despite Carroll’s claims that Trump had raped her, they noted, the jury stopped short of saying he committed that particular offense. Instead, jurors opted for a second option: sexual abuse.

“This was a rape claim, this was a rape case all along, and the jury rejected that — made other findings,” his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said outside the courthouse.

A judge has now clarified that this is basically a legal distinction without a real-world difference. He says that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.

The filing from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan came as Trump’s attorneys have sought a new trial and have argued that the jury’s $5 million verdict against Trump in the civil suit was excessive. The reason, they argue, is that sexual abuse could be as limited as the “groping” of a victim’s breasts.

Kaplan roundly rejected Trump’s motion Tuesday, calling that argument “entirely unpersuasive.”

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape,’ ” Kaplan wrote.

He added: “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Kaplan said New York’s legal definition of “rape” is “far narrower” than the word is understood in “common modern parlance.”

The former requires forcible, unconsented-to penetration with one’s penis. But he said that the conduct the jury effectively found Trump liable for — forced digital penetration — meets a more common definition of rape. He cited definitions offered by the American Psychological Association and the Justice Department, which in 2012 expanded its definition of rape to include penetration “with any body part or object.”

Kaplan also flatly rejected the Trump team’s suggestion that the conduct Trump was found liable for might have been as limited as groping of the breasts.

The reason? Trump was not accused of that, so the only alleged offense that would have qualified as “sexual abuse” was forced digital penetration. Beyond that, Trump was accused of putting his mouth on Carroll’s mouth and pulling down her tights, which Kaplan noted were not treated as alleged sexual abuse at trial.

“The jury’s finding of sexual abuse therefore necessarily implies that it found that Mr. Trump forcibly penetrated her vagina,” Kaplan wrote, calling it the “only remaining conclusion.”

Kaplan also noted that the verdict form did not ask the jury to decide exactly what conduct Trump had committed, and that neither prosecutors nor Trump’s lawyers had requested it to do so.

“Mr. Trump’s attempt to minimize the sexual abuse finding as perhaps resting on nothing more than groping of Ms. Carroll’s breasts through her clothing is frivolous,” Kaplan wrote.

He added that the jury clearly found that Trump had “ ‘raped’ her in the sense of that term broader than the New York Penal Law definition.”

A federal judge in New York has dismissed former President Donald Trump's counterclaim against the writer E. Jean Carroll, finding that Carroll's assertion that Trump raped her is "substantially true."

A civil trial jury in May found that Trump "sexually abused" Carroll in the mid-1990s and awarded her $5 million, but did not find him liable for "rape." Trump's attorneys claimed she defamed him in an interview the next day, on May 10, when she said he raped her — an allegation she had made repeatedly over the years.

But U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, in his 24-page ruling Monday, said the jury found Trump raped Carroll "as the term is understood more broadly."

He wrote that while the jury concluded Trump was not liable for rape according to New York penal code — which requires proof of forceful penetration involving the attacker's genitals — the jurors' conclusion that he was liable for sexually abusing her by forcefully inserting his fingers was an "implicit determination that Mr. Trump digitally raped her."

"Ms. Carroll's statements are 'substantially true,'" Kaplan wrote.

Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan — who is not related to the judge — said Monday she and Carroll are "pleased" with the ruling.

Alina Habba, an attorney for Trump, said, "We strongly disagree with the flawed decision and will be filing an appeal shortly."

Is he in prison yet?

Not close.

Former President Donald Trump lost his bid to invoke an immunity defense to E. Jean Carroll's remaining defamation claim on Wednesday, clearing the way for a trial on damages to begin next month in New York.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Trump waived the defense of presidential immunity because he did not immediately invoke it when Carroll first sued him for allegedly defaming her by claiming she fabricated her account of a mid-1990s sexual assault.

"This case presents a vexing question of first impression: whether presidential immunity is waivable. We answer in the affirmative and further hold that Donald J. Trump waived the defense of presidential immunity by failing to raise it as an affirmative defense in his answer to E. Jean Carroll's complaint," the decision said.

Carroll, a former columnist at Elle magazine, successfully sued Trump for defamation and battery and was awarded $5 million in damages. The judge in Carroll's remaining defamation case against Trump, Lewis Kaplan, has already determined he is liable so the trial will determine how much he should pay.

Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, immediately said they would appeal the decision to the nation's highest court.

Former President Donald Trump attended his defamation damages trial in New York on Tuesday, sitting roughly 10 feet away from E. Jean Carroll, the writer whom a civil jury last year said he was responsible for sexually abusing in the 1990s.

Trump was in the courtroom for jury selection but left before opening statements began to go to a campaign rally in New Hampshire. He was not present when Carroll attorney Shawn Crowley told the jury how Trump had upended her client's life and that they needed to return a verdict large enough to "make him stop" targeting her.

"We submit that number should be very significant," Crowley said.

In a post to his Truth Social platform hours after his projected victory in Monday’s Iowa caucuses, Trump called the case a “giant election interference scam.” He added, “I had no idea who this woman was.”

Trump’s quick hop from a victory speech on Monday night in Iowa to a courtroom in New York on Tuesday morning to a rally in New Hampshire Tuesday night is a microcosm of the former president’s coming year, when he’s expected to oscillate between campaigning and court cases, including four pending criminal trials.

Trump, who is expected to attend Wednesday's proceedings as well, arrived in the courtroom at 9:40 a.m. ET, and took his seat at the defense table. Carroll was seated two rows in front of him and did not turn around. It's believed to be the first time the two have been in the same room in more than 25 years. During a break later in the day, Carroll walked out of the courtroom and passed by Trump, who had his back to her.

Trump appeared attentive as U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan questioned potential jurors. At one point, the judge asked whether anyone in the pool of about 50 people believed that the 2020 election was stolen; after two people said yes, Trump looked over to see which ones. One of the two also answered affirmatively when asked whether they thought Trump was being treated unfairly by the court system.

Neither was among the nine jurors eventually selected.

The judge has already found Trump liable for defaming Carroll in remarks he made as president in 2019 mocking her sexual assault claim. The jury’s only task will be to decide how much money she should get for those remarks, as well as others Trump made after a different jury last year found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

In a post on Truth Social on Tuesday morning as he was sitting in the courtroom, Trump blasted Carroll's account as "fabricated lies and political shenanigans," and wrote that the judge has "been unable to see clearly because of his absolute hatred of Donald J. Trump (ME!)."

In her opening statement, Crowley told the jury that Trump "didn’t just deny the assault" when Carroll first came forward, "he went much further. He said he had no idea of who she was and accused her of lying to make money. And he threatened her."

"He was president when he made those statements and used the world’s biggest megaphone to attack her," Crowley said, telling the jury that Trump's verbal assaults had unleashed a flood of attacks against her from his supporters, threatening and insulting her. "There's not a day that she is not afraid," Crowley said, adding that Trump is continuing to stoke the fire with his attacks on her.

“It’s time to hold him accountable and show him no one is above the law," she said.

Trump attorney Alina Habba countered that Carroll's reputation has "was not harmed. It’s the opposite. She has gained more fame and more notoriety than she could ever have dreamed of."

Habba told the jury that Carroll "has been thrust back into the limelight like she always wanted" and "is looking for you to give her a windfall because some people on social media said mean things about her."

"She doesn’t want to fix her reputation," Habba said. "She likes her new brand and she has been monetizing it for years."

Testimony is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, with Carroll expected to be the first witness to take the stand.

“It’s time to hold him accountable and show him no one is above the law," she said.

Trump attorney Alina Habba countered that Carroll's reputation has "was not harmed. It’s the opposite. She has gained more fame and more notoriety than she could ever have dreamed of."

Habba told the jury that Carroll "has been thrust back into the limelight like she always wanted" and "is looking for you to give her a windfall because some people on social media said mean things about her."

"She doesn’t want to fix her reputation," Habba said. "She likes her new brand and she has been monetizing it for years."

Testimony is scheduled to begin Wednesday morning, with Carroll expected to be the first witness to take the stand.