E. Jean Carroll Goes After Trump Again, Seeks New Damages After CNN Town Hall
Writer E. Jean Carroll wants more money from former President Donald Trump based on comments he made about her in a CNN town hall.
Carroll made a court filing Monday in connection with a pending 2019 lawsuit against Trump, according to The New York Times.
On May 9, Carroll won a civil suit against Trump, in which the jury rejected her claim Trump raped her, but awarded her $5 million for defamation and sexual abuse. Trump is appealing the verdict.
On May 10, Trump called Carroll a “whack job” during the town hall.
Former President Donald Trump on E. Jean Carroll:
“I swear… and I have never done that. And I swear I have no idea who the hell… she’s a whack job.” pic.twitter.com/lZ94oN7uTT
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 11, 2023
The 2019 case is rooted in Trump’s comments after Carroll first made her allegations that Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the 1990s.
“I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump told The Hill in an interview after Carroll made the claim.
Trump said then that he had never met Carroll.
“Totally lying. I don’t know anything about her,” he said. “I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her. She is — it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that.”
Monday’s court filing said that Trump’s comments about Carroll during the town hall “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.”
“This conduct supports a very substantial punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same,” the filing said in asking the judge to allow her to revise her claim to include the jury verdict and the town hall comments.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, claimed in a separate letter to the court that Trump is threatening to sue Carroll “in retaliation and possibly to seek sanctions.”
Kaplan said Trump’s comments “literally the day after the verdict” require punishment.
“It makes a mockery of the jury verdict and our justice system if he can just keep on repeating the same defamatory statements over and over again,” Kaplan said.
the CNN town hall audience laughs as Trump smears E Jean Carroll pic.twitter.com/HIokiAqIom
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 11, 2023
During the town hall, Trump relayed his version of Carroll’s story.
“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 rarely go into other than for a couple of charities. I met her in the front door. She was about 60 years old. This is like 22, 23 years ago,” he said.
“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,” he said.
“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,” he said.
Trump then gave his opinion of the story.
“What kind of a woman meet somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, OK?” he added.
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