Trump’s Attempt to Stay E. Jean Carroll Defamation Case Rejected by Judge Amid Rising Legal Challenges

In a recently issued judgment, an appeals court denied a move from former President Donald Trump's legal team to put writer E. Jean Carroll's latest lawsuit against him on hold. The justices did, however, leave a narrow window open for the former president, ordering an expedited hearing on his claims of presidential immunity, which a lower court judge had concluded were unfounded, per Raw Story.

The former President's legal team had requested that the trial be postponed while he appeals the immunity ruling. "Although we do not grant a stay pending appeal, it would be in the interest of the parties, as confirmed during oral argument, for the Court to resolve the issue of absolute presidential immunity as presented in the two appeals expeditiously," the order said. "Moreover, the parties' extensive briefing thus far makes clear that they have already substantially developed their arguments on the merits of that and related issues."

Carroll, who claims Trump raped her at a department shop in the late 1990s, sued Trump for defamation and sexual violence after he denied the encounter and made heinous allegations that she made it up for professional advantage. Earlier this year, a jury held Trump guilty of defamation as well as sexual assault in a separate lawsuit filed by the same complainant. 

Trump, on the other hand, proceeded to make many of the same bogus statements, even leading a pro-Trump crowd at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire in laughing directed at her. Carroll has since sued Trump once again. The former president counterclaimed against her, but a court ruled that Carroll's comments of Trump were "substantially true" and dismissed the suit.

Carroll’s lawyer Robbie Kaplan in a statement said, “We look forward both to the January 15 trial on damages and to making our arguments to the Second Circuit that Donald Trump waived presidential immunity.”

Kaplan accuses the former president of playing legal games by claiming total presidential immunity after the action as the case approached trial and he continued losing court judgments. Trump's lawyer did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

In May, a jury in Manhattan federal court awarded Carroll $5 million in damages for the second complaint, saying that he sexually assaulted her during an encounter at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s and defamed her in remarks he made last autumn rejecting her allegation. Trump is appealing the judgment because he denies sexually assaulting Carroll.

Carroll claims in her current lawsuit that Trump defamed her in 2019 when he first made remarks disputing her rape accusation as president. That case was stalled for years by legal processes, including an attempt by the Department of Justice to essentially destroy Carroll's claim by claiming Trump was immune from defamation since he was president at the time.