Donald Trump failed to overturn E. Jean Carroll’s $5 million judgment

In 2023, a civil court found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll. E. Jean sued Trump decades after he raped her in the fitting room of Bergdorf’s, and it took years for the case to get to trial. Once Trump was found liable, he continued to attack and defame Carroll, and there was an additional trial to determine the extent of the defamation. E. Jean Carroll won a judgment of $5 million for the sexual abuse, but she was awarded $83.3 million for the defamation. Trump and his team have been trying to appeal the case all year. They were unsuccessful.

President-elect Donald J. Trump on Monday failed to overturn a $5 million judgment that he sexually abused the writer E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and later defamed her.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued to a federal appeals panel that a lower court in Manhattan had erred by allowing two women to testify in the Carroll trial that he had also sexually assaulted them. The lawyers also argued that the court should not have allowed Ms. Carroll’s lawyers to play the recording of the “Access Hollywood” conversation in which Mr. Trump bragged in vulgar terms about grabbing women by the genitals.

The appeals court rejected Mr. Trump’s request for a new trial in the case, which produced the smaller of two defamation judgments against him. “Mr. Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings,” the opinion by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit said. It was unsigned but issued by a three-judge panel made up of Denny Chin and Susan Carney — appointed by President Barack Obama — as well as Myrna Pérez, appointed by President Biden.

“Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today’s decision,” Roberta Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, said in a statement. “We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties’ arguments.”

Steven Cheung, Mr. Trump’s chief campaign spokesman, who is set to be his White House communications director, said Mr. Trump was re-elected with an “overwhelming mandate,” and he said the American people “demand an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and a swift dismissal of all of the witch hunts, including the Democrat-funded Carroll hoax, which will continue to be appealed.”

[From The NY Times]

Almost all of Trump’s criminal and legal issues will disappear the moment he takes the oath of office in three weeks, but I’m so glad that at least E. Jean got justice and the courts have upheld her victories. I’m really worried for her though – what despicable things will Trump say about her or do to her now? God, this whole thing is such a sh-tshow.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.