Judge rejects Donald Trump’s request to toss out defamation claims by columnist

NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump’s claims that absolute presidential immunity and free speech rights protect him from the defamation claims of a New York columnist had been rejected Thursday by a federal choose.

The author, E. Jean Carroll, can proceed to press claims that Trump owes her not less than $10 million in damages for feedback he made earlier than and after she gained a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict in opposition to him final month, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan stated in a written opinion.

Trump tried to dismiss the lawsuit on grounds that he’s entitled to absolute presidential immunity, his statements weren’t defamatory and that his statements had been opinion protected by free speech rights.

Kaplan stated Trump surrendered absolute presidential immunity as a protection by failing to claim it years in the past when the lawsuit was filed. The lawsuit was delayed till lately as appeals courts thought of authorized points surrounding it.

Trump countersued Carroll this week, claiming that she has libeled him by persevering with to insist that he raped her even after a jury discovered in any other case.

After a jury returned its verdict final month in Manhattan federal courtroom, Trump made feedback on a CNN city corridor that prompted Carroll to claim new defamation claims in a 2020 defamation lawsuit.

The jury award resulted from a sexual abuse and defamation lawsuit filed final November after New York state quickly enacted a legislation permitting sexual assault victims to sue for damages ensuing from assaults that occurred even a long time earlier.

Trump’s claims within the CNN broadcast mirrored statements he made whereas president in 2019 when Carroll printed a memoir during which she claimed Trump raped her within the dressing room of a luxurious midtown Manhattan division retailer in spring 1996.

Within hours of excerpts from the ebook being printed in {a magazine}, Trump denied a rape occurred or that he ever knew Carroll.

“Mr. Trump did not merely deny Ms. Carroll’s accusation of sexual assault,” Kaplan wrote. “Instead, he accused Ms. Carroll of lying about him sexually assaulting her in order to increase sales of her book, gain publicity, and/or carry out a political agenda.”

The choose stated the principle objective of presidential immunity was to keep away from diverting the president from public duties, however it was not a “get-out-of-damages-liability-free card that permits the president to say or do anything he or she desires even if that conduct is disconnected entirely from an official function.”

Kaplan stated he took into consideration that Carroll is now 79 years previous and has pursued claims in opposition to Trump for 3 1/2 years.

“There is no basis to risk prolonging the resolution of this litigation further by permitting Mr. Trump to raise his absolute immunity defense now at the eleventh hour when he could have done so years ago,” he stated.

In rejecting claims that Carroll’s lawsuit was about protected speech, Kaplan defined how libel and slander are dealt with within the courts and why Trump’s statements might be construed to suit the authorized definition for defamation, together with {that a} jury had already discovered it so.

Trump’s attorneys didn’t instantly remark.

Attorney Robbie Kaplan, who represents Carroll and is unrelated to the choose, stated in an announcement that the choose’s ruling “confirms that once again, Donald Trump’s supposed defenses to E. Jean Carroll’s defamation claims don’t work.”

She added: “Today’s decision removes one more impediment to the January 15 trial on E Jean’s defamation damages in this case.”