A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied Trump’s request to stay a defamation suit filed by E Jean Carroll.
The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals however granted Trump an expedited appeal on whether he can assert absolute presidential immunity.
Last week Judge Lewis Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, ruled that Trump is liable for defamatory statements he made about E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of rape.
In May Manhattan jury reached a verdict in the E. Jean Carroll rape/defamation case.
In 2019, E. Jean Carroll alleged Donald Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.
Trump has denied the allegations and called E. Jean Carroll a “whack job” who’s “not my type.”
The jury found Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.
Trump blasted E. Jean. Carroll during a CNN town hall in May.
“What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room?” Trump said, adding the accusation was a ‘fake’ and ‘made-up story.’
She went after Trump again and Judge Lewis Kaplan agreed with E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers and said Trump is liable for his statements.
Carroll is seeking at least $10 million in damages in this separate case.
The trial will begin on January 15, 2024.
CNBC reported:
A federal appeals court on Wednesday denied a bid by Donald Trump to delay a defamation lawsuit by the writer E. Jean Carroll, but granted him an expedited appeal on the question of whether he can claim absolute presidential immunity as a defense.
The order by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals is a partial victory for Trump after a series of significant losses in two lawsuits that Carroll filed against him related to her allegation of being raped by him in the mid-1990s in a New York department store.
Barring further action by that appeals court or the Supreme Court, the second of Carroll’s suits remains scheduled for trial in mid-January in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
But the 2nd Circuit in its order Wednesday consolidated two pending appeals by Trump and ordered his lawyers and Carroll’s attorney to file legal briefs on the dispute over the next 35 days.
