Former president Donald Trump is punching back at writer E. Jean Carroll, who won a $5 million judgment against him for her defamation and sexual harassment claims, the Conservative Brief reported. Trump is countersuing, claiming Carroll made defamatory comments about him on CNN following his civil trial.
Carroll had accused Trump of raping her in a New York City Bergdorf Goodman department store sometime in 1996. She alleged that she bumped into Trump on a day she could not recall and that he asked her to help him shop for a gift.
She claims the pair walked around the store before Trump suddenly forced her into a dressing room and attacked her. Trump has vehemently denied the claim about a decades-old alleged crime that was never reported.
He said the author made up the story to promote her book. Carroll, in turn, filed the defamation lawsuit stating Trump had negatively impacted her reputation.
Her lawsuit demanded a monetary judgment and that Trump recant his statement against her. A jury would later find him responsible for defamation and sexual assault but not rape.
Trump's 20204 presidential campaign has called this another "witch hunt" against him while his legal team rejected Carroll's claims completely. "The facts in evidence made plain here that E. Jean Carroll’s story is not worthy of your belief, not even close," Trump's lawyer Joe Tacopina said.
"Her story – and it’s just that, a story – is not true; she was not raped at Bergdorf Goodman’s. She was not defamed by being called out on making up that story."
To recover his good name, Trump filed his counterclaim Tuesday against Carroll after she accused him of rape in a CNN interview on May 10. It was the day after the jury found that he did not rape her.
A CNN host asked what Carroll thought of Trump being cleared of the rape, to which she replied, "Oh yes he did, oh yes he did." Trump's legal filing contends she repeated "these false statements with actual malice and ill will with an intent to significantly and spitefully harm and attack."
Furthermore, the counterclaim said that the former president "has been the subject of significant harm to his reputation, which, in turn, has yielded an inordinate amount of damages sustained as a result." Trump's attorneys said Carroll's claims were particularly damaging as they were repeated in front of a wide audience.
"The interview was on television, social media, and multiple internet websites, with the intention of broadcasting and circulating these defamatory statements among a significant portion of the public," the filing pointed out. "Counterclaim Defendant made these false statements with actual malice and ill will with an intent to significantly and spitefully harm and attack Counterclaimant’s reputation, as these false statements were clearly contrary to the jury verdict in Carroll II whereby Counterclaimant was found not liable for rape by the jury."
Attorneys further stated this would "constitute defamation per se, as Counterclaim Defendant accused Counterclaimant of rape, which clearly was not committed, according to the jury verdict in Carroll II," the filing said. "Due to Counterclaim Defendant’s repeated falsehoods and defamatory statements made against the Counterclaimant, Counterclaimant has been the subject of significant harm to his reputation, which, in turn, has yielded an inordinate amount of damages sustained as a result."
It's amazing that a jury would believe Carroll's assertions of an alleged crime that happened nearly 30 years ago without any contemporaneous reporting. She was able to collect a settlement that was likely a judgment on Trump as a man rather than an examination of the facts at hand.
Now Trump has a chance to challenge Carroll's claims in his own civil lawsuit. She ruined his reputation without a shred of concrete evidence, but Carroll may be forced to finally pay the price for that.
