E. Jean Carroll reacts as she 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 appeals court on Wednesday denied a bid by Donald Trump to delay a defamation lawsuit by the author E. Jean Carroll, but granted him an expedited appeal on the query of whether he can claim absolute presidential immunity as a defense.
The order by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals is a partial victory for Trump after a series of serious losses in two lawsuits that Carroll filed against him related to her allegation of being raped by him within the mid-Nineties in a Latest York department store.
Barring further motion by that appeals court or the Supreme Court, the second of Carroll’s suits stays scheduled for trial in mid-January in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
However the 2nd Circuit in its order Wednesday consolidated two pending appeals by Trump and ordered his lawyers and Carroll’s attorney to file legal briefs on the dispute over the subsequent 35 days.
“The appeals might be assigned to the primary available panel to listen to the cases on the merits,” the court said.
Which means a panel of three appeals judges could hear arguments by mid-October, and potentially rule before the trial is on account of start.
The order got here every week after a federal district court judge ruled that Trump is civilly accountable for defamatory statements he made about Carrol in 2019 when she first went public along with her allegations of getting been raped by him. The ruling means the upcoming trial will solely take care of the query of how much Trump should pay Carroll in monetary damages.
Carroll’s lawyer Robbie Kaplan in an announcement said, “We glance forward each to the January 15 trial on damages and to creating our arguments to the Second Circuit that Donald Trump waived presidential immunity.”
Kaplan in court filings has scoffed at Trump’s appeals of two hostile rulings by the judge within the case, accusing the previous president of legal gamesmanship by raising a claim of absolute presidential immunity on the tail end of litigation because the case got closer to trial and he kept losing court rulings.
A lawyer for Trump didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
A jury in Manhattan federal court in May awarded Carroll $5 million in damages for the opposite lawsuit after finding that he had sexually abused her during an encounter within the Bergdorf Goodman department store within the Nineties, and defamed her in statements he made denying her allegation last fall.
Trump, who denies sexually assaulting Carroll, is appealing that verdict.
Within the pending suit headed to trial, Carroll alleges Trump defamed her in 2019 when he, as president, first made statements denying her claim of rape. That case was delayed for years by legal proceedings that included an effort by the Department of Justice to effectively kill Carroll’s claim by arguing Trump had immunity from the lawsuit because he had been president on the time.
In July, the DOJ dropped those efforts, citing a ruling by the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., that suggested Trump could possibly be personally sued if his statements didn’t have the aim of serving the U.S. government.
The DOJ also noted that Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements about Carroll continued after he left the White House in January 2021.
