The New York author who won a $5 million sexual abuse trial against Donald Trump was allowed to expand an earlier defamation lawsuit to add remarks he made about her on a CNN town hall and seek at least $10 million more in damages.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday granted E. Jean Carroll’s request to amend her lawsuit over Trump’s objections.
The ruling in the civil case came on the same day Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, pleaded not guilty in the federal criminal case against him over his handling of classified U.S. documents. Kaplan’s order adds one more legal problem to the former president’s plate.
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said Kaplan made the wrong call.
Trump has said the jury finding in the more recent civil case — that he was liable for sexual abuse but not for rape — derails Carroll’s earlier defamation lawsuit, in which she also claimed he raped her. In her amended suit in that case, Carroll changed references from rape to sexual assault.
“We maintain that she should not be permitted to retroactively change her legal theory, at the eleventh hour, to avoid the consequences of an adverse finding against her,” Habba said in a statement.
During the televised town hall, which aired shortly after the sexual abuse verdict, Trump called Carroll’s allegations “a fake story” and dismissed her as a “wack job.”
The earlier suit, which Carroll filed over comments Trump made about her while he was president, has an unusual twist. It hinges on whether he enjoyed presidential immunity in 2019 when he called her a liar after she went public with allegations that he raped her in a dressing room of a New York department store more than two decades ago. Trump has denied defaming or assaulting Carroll.
The U.S. government has sought to substitute itself for Trump in the case and claimed the allegedly defamatory statements were made within the scope of his role as president. That would nullify the lawsuit because the U.S. can’t be sued for defamation.
But in another potential setback to Trump, Kaplan said in Tuesday’s order the government has conceded that subsequent events have “overtaken” its initial position on the case and had asked for more time to determine its course. He gave the U.S. until July 13 to submit its stance.
The case is Carroll v. Trump, 20-cv-07311, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
