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Former President Donald Trump is standing his ground in the ongoing legal battle with E. Jean Carroll, a New York author who accused him of sexual assault.
Trump has now filed a counterclaim against Carroll, accusing her of defamation after a jury held him liable for the alleged abuse.
The counterclaim argues that Carroll damaged Trump’s reputation by publicly accusing him of rape during a CNN appearance, despite the jury’s conclusion that his actions didn’t reach that level.
According to the filing, Trump’s reputation has suffered significant harm, resulting in substantial damages.
During the trial, a jury composed of six men and three women found Trump liable for sexual abuse, but not for rape, and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
While Carroll emerged victorious from the first trial, Trump interpreted the verdict as a partial success due to the distinction made regarding rape.
Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Trump, filed in 2019, is set to go to trial in January and Trump’s recent filing serves as a counterclaim.
Trump aims to return to the White House in the 2024 presidential election.
Previously, Trump’s legal team had been denied the opportunity to file a counterclaim against Carroll in her defamation case, as the request was deemed untimely.
However, Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, argues that a new window for filing a counterclaim opened when Carroll was allowed to amend her complaint after winning the battery trial.
In her amended complaint, Carroll changed all references to ‘rape’ to ‘sexual abuse’ and included Trump’s remarks about her during a CNN town hall, where he called her a liar and accused her of fabricating the attack.
According to Trump’s filing, Carroll falsely claimed on CNN, a day after the verdict, that Trump had indeed raped her.
This statement was made ‘with an intent to significantly and spitefully harm and attack’ Trump, as claimed in the filing.
The interview in question was widely televised, shared on social media, and circulated on multiple internet platforms, aiming to spread these defamatory statements to a large portion of the public.
Carroll first made her claims public in a magazine article published in 2019, which prompted Trump’s vehement denials while he was in the White House.
Trump even asserted that he couldn’t have raped Carroll because she wasn’t his ‘type,’ and accused her of making false accusations to benefit the Democrats.
These comments form the basis of Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Trump, which is scheduled to begin next year.