An attorney for columnist E. Jean Carroll suggested further legal action against former President Trump could be on the table following his latest denial of Carroll’s rape and defamation claims.
“We have said several times since the last jury verdict in January that all options were on the table. And that remains true today — all options are on the table,” attorney Roberta Kaplan said Tuesday in a statement to The Hill.
Trump, in a Truth Social post marking Memorial Day on Monday, ripped into U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversaw the civil case in which Trump was found liable for sexually assaulting Carroll, as well as a later case in which a jury found Trump liable for defaming her.
“Happy Memorial Day to All, including the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for ‘DEFAMATION,'” Trump wrote.
A federal jury in Manhattan ordered the former president pay an $83.3 million award earlier this year for defaming the writer in 2019 when he denied her allegation that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s.
In the weeks that followed the court order, Trump published a series of posts and articles on social media denying Carroll’s allegations.
Trump has maintained Carroll was lying and fabricated the accusation to sell her book and has demanded a new trial. Kaplan last month rejected Trump’s attempt for a new trial, ruling Trump’s arguments were “without merit.”
Carroll earlier this year said she would “absolutely” sue the former president should he defame her again. In March, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, noted to CNBC the statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one year and three years.
“As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll,” Kaplan told CNBC at the time.
The January verdict was the second time Carroll won damages from Trump. A separate jury last year found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her in other remarks. The former president was ordered to pay $5 million.