Former President Donald J. Trump faces more legal trouble from writer E. Jean Carroll who, despite being awarded $5 million by a New York City jury in her rape and defamation lawsuit against him, isn’t satisfied and is now seeking more money over his remarks about her during a CNN town hall.
On Monday, the advice columnist’s lawyers filed new papers in a Manhattan federal court seeking to amend a second lawsuit against the 2024 GOP frontrunner to include his town hall comments and posts from his Truth Social platform. The additional amount that Carroll is looking to extract from Trump is reportedly $10 million.
According to the filing, Trump’s statements, “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 states.
The words that triggered Carroll included the former president’s informing the national television audience that the “whack job” columnist named her cat “vagina” and recalled derogatory racial remarks that she allegedly made about her own husband.
Donald Trump, accused of sexual misconduct by over two dozen women, responds to being held liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll by bragging about poll numbers and attacking the judge:
“Her dog, or her cat, was named Vagina. The judge wouldn’t allow us to put that in.” pic.twitter.com/jDf0hjBwfW
— The Recount (@therecount) May 11, 2023
“I don’t know her. I never met her. I have no idea who she is. I had a picture taken years ago with her and her husband. Nice guy, Johnson. He was a newscaster, very nice man. She called him an ape. Happens to be African American. Called him an ape,” Trump said, leaving open the possibility that Carroll is a racist.
“The judge wouldn’t allow us to put that in. Her dog or her cat was named ‘Vagina.’ The judge wouldn’t allow to put that in all of these things. But with her, they could put in anything. Access Hollywood,” he added.
Trump also denounced the “scam” verdict – which he has since appealed – in a video after it was announced, ripping the “Clinton-appointed Trump-hating judge” and a biased jury drawn from a pool in an area packed with people who despise him.
(Video: The Daily Mail)
“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,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta A. Kaplan said on Monday, the New York Times reported.
Kaplan had previously told the paper that her client was mulling additional damages over Trump’s town hall comments and now she has followed through in more legal trouble for the ex-POTUS who has been beset with lawfare battles waged against him by his adversaries.
“It’s just stupid, it’s just disgusting, vile, foul, it wounds people,” Carroll told the NYT after the town hall aired, adding that she had been “insulted by better people” and that her attorney sent her a transcript of Trump’s comments and she had only read the first paragraph.
“We intend to vigorously oppose this motion, which we view as nothing more than a desperate, last-ditch effort by Ms. Carroll to upend this case,” said Alina Habba, one of Trump’s lawyers on Monday. “We have been paying attention to the statements made by Ms. Carroll in the press and are considering all options.”
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