Former President Donald Trump's legal team is claiming a potential conflict of interest that they believe will aid in their appeal of the $83 million defamation ruling against him in the E. Jean Carroll case. Alina Haba, Trump's attorney, recently revealed that she had no prior knowledge of the professional relationship between Judge Louis Kaplan and Roberta Kaplan, who is representing E. Jean Carroll in this lawsuit. The pair apparently worked together at the same law firm in the early 1990s. While waiting for a response from Roberta Kaplan, a representative spoke on her behalf, stating that the overlap between the two was brief and that they never had a working relationship.
According to sources familiar with the matter, Trump's legal team sees this connection as a potential ethics violation and plans to utilize this information in their appeal. They view the overlapping professional history of Judge Kaplan and Roberta Kaplan as an 'insane' conflict of interest. Last week, a jury awarded E. Jean Carroll over $80 million in damages in her second defamation trial against Trump. The jury concluded that Trump had acted with malice when he denied Carroll's sexual assault allegations during his presidency in 2019. Trump maintains his denial of the allegations, as he did throughout the trial.
