E. Jean Carroll exits the Manhattan Federal Court following the decision within the civil rape accusation case against former U.S. President Donald Trump, in Latest York City, May 9, 2023.
Brendan McDermid | Reuters
A federal judge on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss the unique civil defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the author who alleges the previous president defamed her after she accused him of sexual assault.
Trump’s arguments for dismissing the case “are without merit,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The ruling followed a series of recent twists within the years long legal battle between Trump and Carroll, who alleges Trump raped her in a Latest York City department store within the mid-Nineteen Nineties after which defamed her when she took her story public a long time later.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney who isn’t related to the judge, said in an announcement that the ruling shows Trump’s defenses against the defamation claims “don’t work.”
“Trump selected to waive presidential immunity and now he must live with the outcomes of that call,” the attorney said.
A lawyer for Trump didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s request for comment.
Two days earlier, Trump filed a counterclaim against Carroll in the identical case, accusing her of defamation by continuing to publicly say he raped her.
His counterclaim pointed to multiple remarks by Carroll, including comments she made at some point after a jury in a separate, but related, civil case found Trump was responsible for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her.
But that jury, which ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million in damages, in its May 9 verdict didn’t find Trump responsible for rape. Asked in a CNN interview about that finding by the jury, Carroll replied, “Oh yes he did, oh yes he did.”
Trump’s lawyers had filed to dismiss the unique lawsuit in December.  They argued that he had “absolute immunity” because he made the remarks in query while he was president. The attorneys also contended Carroll’s defamation claims fell wanting legal standards, amongst other points.
Kaplan, in his 46-page ruling Thursday afternoon, was unswayed. He rejected the presidential immunity argument, writing, “Mr. Trump doesn’t discover any connection between the allegedly defamatory content of his statements … to any official responsibility of the president. Nor can the Court consider any possible connection.”
Carroll filed the primary defamation suit against Trump in 2019, while he was still president. After her account of sexual assault was published in Latest York Magazine, Trump repeatedly denied the claims, at one point saying, “She’s not my type.”
Carroll filed the second civil suit against Trump in 2022. At some point after the decision in that case was returned, Trump railed against Carroll during a live CNN town hall event and again denied her claims.
Soon after, Carroll amended her criticism in the primary lawsuit to incorporate Trump’s latest comments and seek monetary damages of a minimum of $10 million. The case is about to go to trial on Jan. 15, 2024.
