The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals once again ruled against President Donald Trump as he tries to overturn the defamation awards for E. Jean Carroll.
Carroll claimed Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room decades ago.
In 2023, the same court upheld a verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation against Carroll, awarding her $5 million.
This ruling upholds the jury’s verdict in Carroll’s second trial awarding her $83 million after finding “Trump acted with common law malice when he made defamatory statements about Carroll in June 2019.”
Trump argued he has presidential immunity or deserves a new trial. He also claimed the amount is excessive.
The court listed the supposed defamatory remarks (pages six to eight) and, well, I just raise my eyebrows.
Carroll is an advice columnist, making her a public figure.
As you know, public figures have a much narrower standard to prove defamation, making it difficult for them to win a case.
Basically, Trump’s statements deny the alleged rape. He described the charges as fabricated and nonsense and the case as fake.
Trump constantly repeated that he has never even met Carroll: “I’ve said it once & I’ll say it again, a thousand times . . . . I never heard of E. Jean Carroll, never had anything to do with her, never would want anything to do with her . . . . The whole story is a MADE UP & DISGUSTING HOAX!”
I…I don’t ever recall someone defending themselves or denying accusations being defamatory.
Concerning immunity, the court wrote:
In any event, presidential immunity differs in both origin and purpose from the other “structural” immunities that Trump references. Apart from the Supreme Court’s recognition that presidential immunity is rooted in the constitutional structure, Trump does not draw any comparisons to these other immunities or reconcile these differences. In the absence of any intervening change of law on this issue, adhering to our prior decision would not work a manifest injustice.
Then the court gets into the malice portion. Trump made these statements before the jury’s verdict. That’s important because the court wrote:
In any event, we find no error in the district court’s ruling. The starting point is the now-indisputable fact that a jury found in Carroll II that Trump sexually abused Carroll in 1996, and that finding is entitled to preclusive effect. See supra Discussion Section II.A. Likewise, it is now indisputable that, based on the jury’s findings, Carroll did not lie and that Trump uttered falsehoods in his statements accusing her of lying and acting with improper motivations. See supra Discussion Section II.A. Because Trump’s 2019 statements about his own personal conduct mirrored the statements he made in 2022, a reasonable juror could only conclude that Trump knew that his statements — that Carroll lied about him sexually assaulting her for ulterior purposes — were false or that he acted with reckless disregard to whether those statements were false.
Again…when has statements defending yourself or denying allegations ever been described as defamatory?
Then the court said “Trump acted with, at a minimum, reckless disregard for the truth.”
Why? Well, again, because…I don’t know:
In his deposition testimony, Trump admitted that prior to making his 2019 statements, he never read Carroll’s book or the New York magazine publication, never contacted Bergdorf Goodman’s, never did any research on Carroll, and never had anyone working for him research Carroll. He also admitted that, before issuing his 2019 statements, he had no knowledge of Carroll’s book deal, financial circumstances, or political affiliation.
Am I missing something here?
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