Trump's request for new trial in E. Jean Carroll defamation case denied by federal judge

President Donald Trump requested a new trial in the civil case brought against him by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleged that at some point she could not precisely remember in the mid-1990s he had sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan, and that request has been denied by a federal judge.  

Carroll was awarded $83 million in a defamation suit following a win in her civil suit, in which a New York City judge and jury determined that Trump was civilly liable for sexual assault. The case did not meet the bar for a criminal prosecution.  

In addition to denying Trump's request for a new trial, district judge Lewis A. Kaplan also said that Trump must pay out the $83 million, for which he has posted bond. The damages were for what were alleged to be reputational damages to Carroll, sustained when Trump defended himself publicly against her allegations. This was classified as defamation.  

Carroll's accusations against Trump were revealed in a tell-all expose she penned for The New York Magazine in 2019 at the height of the #MeToo movement when society at large was ready to "believe all women."  

Trump called her a "wack job" and said he never met her about 5 hours after the story was published. These were the comments Carroll alleged caused her $83 million worth of harm.  

Carroll has been featured on talk show and in publications ever since 2019 and has been praised by legacy media for her alleged bravery in coming forward. After she was awarded $83 million in the defamation suit, MSNBC pundit Rachel Maddow asked Carroll what she would do with the money, to which she replied that she would "go shopping" and offered to buy Maddow a penthouse.  

In his decision denying Trump's request for a new trial, Kaplan said that Trump's reasons were insufficient. Trump's attorneys said that the plaintiff had to prove that Trump spoke out against Carroll and her allegations with the intent to harm her, that he was motivated by common law malice and nothing else, and that the plaintiff had not done so. Kaplan said they didn't have to prove that.  

Further, Trump's attorneys said that the burden of proof for the case should be more than a "preponderance of the evidence," that the jury in the case should have been instructed to make their determination based on "clear and convincing evidence." This argument also did not meet with Kaplan's approval. In defending the rulings, Kaplan repeatedly referred to the plaintiff's arguments that the plaintiff should win the large sum. In other words, Trump wanted a higher bar of proof for the plaintiff to have to meet, but the judge said that wasn't necessary, and that the low bar was fine.  

While Trump states that the $83 million is excessive, Kaplan stated in his ruling that "contrary to the defendant's arguments, Ms. Carroll's compensatory damages were not awarded solely for her emotional distress; they were not for garden variety harms, and they were not excessive, for all of the reasons stated in Ms. Carroll's opposition brief."  

Kaplan leaned into the then-president's reach on social media, claiming that because he had broadcast his statements of self-defense against what he claims is Carroll's defamation against him, the alleged defamation against Carroll was that much worse. While he posited that Trump's comments were visible to millions, Kaplan said that there "is no evidence at all as to the dissemination of The Cut article to which defendant seeks to assign all of the damages suffered by Ms. Carroll and which was not even alleged to have been defamatory." Kaplan may not be familiar with website traffic, which every online publication has been obsessed with since the internet became a newsstand.  

"Mr. Trump’s malicious and unceasing attacks on Ms. Carroll were disseminated to more than 100 million people. They included public threats and personal attacks, and they endangered Ms. Carroll’s health and safety. The jury was entitled to conclude that Mr. Trump derailed the career, reputation, and emotional well-being of one of America’s most successful and prominent advice columnists and authors — to which she testified repeatedly29 — and award her $18.3 million in compensatory damages," Kaplan said. It was because he was president, Kaplan said, and had such a wide audience, that his comments were harmful.  

"The jury was entitled to find that 'the degree of reprehensibility' of Mr. Trump’s 14 conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented. Far from being purely 'defensive,' there was evidence that Mr. Trump used the office of the presidency — the loudest 'bully pulpit' in America and possibly the world — to issue multiple statements castigating Ms. Carroll as a politically and financially motivated liar, insinuating that she was too unattractive for him to have sexually assaulted, and threatening that she would 'pay dearly' for speaking out.” 

"The jury could have found that Mr. Trump wielded his position as arguably the most powerful and famous man in the world to broadcast his lies to millions of dedicated followers in an effort to destroy Ms. Carroll’s credibility, to punish her for coming forward, and to deter other women from doing so as well. It could have found also that he continued his attacks over the nearly five years that it took this case to come to a jury verdict. And there was evidence that Mr. Trump’s statements about Ms. Carroll only increased in frequency and vitriol as trial approached, with Mr. Trump repeating the same or similar attacks on Ms. Carroll despite knowing that a jury and the Court already had held his similar 2022 statement to have been defamatory."  

The $83 million, Kaplan said, was meant to act as a deterrent to Trump making remarks against Carroll. "Accordingly, Mr. Trump's motions for a new trial and for a judgement as a matter of law are DENIED."  

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