Donald Trump has filed a defamation lawsuit against E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, following a jury verdict that found him guilty of sexually abusing and defaming her. The counterclaim was filed on Tuesday night, alleging that Carroll defamed Trump during her appearance on CNN the morning after the jury awarded her $5 million in damages. When asked about the verdict, which found that Trump sexually abused Carroll but did not rape her as she had alleged, Carroll responded, “Oh, yes he did.”
In response to the new claim, Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, stated, “Donald Trump again argues, contrary to both logic and fact, that he was exonerated by a jury that found that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll.” She added that Trump’s filing is his latest attempt to delay accountability for what a jury has already found to be his defamation of E. Jean Carroll. However, she affirmed that accountability is imminent, whether Trump likes it or not.
The counterclaim is the most recent development in a multi-year legal battle between Trump and Carroll. Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in 2019 after he denied her allegation that he raped her in the mid-1990s in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, claiming he didn’t know Carroll and that she wasn’t his type. She sued him again last year under a New York law that allowed a one-year window for civil lawsuits for survivors of sexual assault, regardless of when they occurred. Trump has requested a new trial.
The 2019 defamation lawsuit is scheduled to go to trial next year, although several legal issues are still pending. Carroll is seeking more than $10 million in damages in that case, in part because Trump repeated statements the jury found to be defamatory after the verdict on social media and at a CNN town hall.