The writer who won her civil suit against the ex-president earlier this month wants another $10 million for new defamatory remarks.
Remember earlier this month, when a jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, and ordered him to pay her $5 million in damages? And then, literally one day later, he went on CNN and defamed her some more, insisting, “This is a fake story, a made-up story”? At the time, Trump probably assumed there would be no blowback for his remarks given that—with the excerption of the verdict a day prior—he’s basically never been held accountable for anything in his life, including the lies that came out of his mouth on a near-daily basis. But in a happy twist, that is no longer the case!
On Monday, Carroll amended her lawsuit against the ex-president, arguing that he reiterated the false and derogatory remarks he initially made about her, which led to the original suit. “He doubled down on his prior defamatory statements, asserting to an audience all too ready to cheer him on that ‘I never met this woman. I never saw this woman,’ that he did not sexually assault Carroll, and that her account—which had just been validated by a jury of Trump’s peers one day before—was a ‘fake,’ ‘made-up story’ invented by a ‘whack job,’” Carroll’s lawyers wrote. “Those statements resulted in enthusiastic cheers and applause from the audience on live TV.” The attorneys added, “Trump used a national platform to demean and mock Carroll. He egged on a laughing audience as he made light of his violent sexual assault, called Carroll names, implied that Carroll was asking to be assaulted, and dismissed the jury’s verdict vindicating Carroll.”
The minimum of $10 million in additional damages, Carroll’s legal team wrote, is meant to “both to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same.”
During the trial, Carroll testified that Trump had attacked her in a department store in the mid-’90s. Trump chose to neither testify nor attend the proceedings. But in a fully insane taped deposition, which was played for the jury, he doubled down on his remarks on the infamous Access Hollywood tape; when asked about his claim that it was okay to grab someone’s genitals without their permission if ”you’re a star,” he responded—in the midst of a deposition about allegedly raping someone—“If you look over the last million years, that’s been largely true, not always but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately.” When asked about his claim that several other women who’ve accused him of sexual assault were not his “type,” Trump told Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, “You wouldn’t be a choice of mine either, to be honest…I wouldn’t in any circumstances have any interest in you.”
Joe Tacopina, the attorney who represented Trump at trial, declined the Associated Press’s request for comment on the new claim. For his part, Trump took to Truth Social today to comment on the case and seemingly defame Carroll once again, writing, “I don’t know E. Jean Carroll, I never met her or touched her (except on a celebrity line with her African American husband who she disgustingly called the “Ape,”), I wouldn’t want to know or touch her, I never abused her or raped her or took her to a dressing room 25 years ago in a crowded department store where the doors are LOCKED, she has no idea when, or did anything else to her, except deny her Fake, Made Up Story, that she wrote in a book. IT NEVER HAPPENED, IS A TOTAL SCAM, UNFAIR TRIAL!”
Seems like that should be worth at least another $5 million!
