Trump Comes Face-to-Face With E. Jean Carroll in Federal Court as He Appeals ‘Ridiculous’ Ruling

Veering from the campaign trail to court, Donald Trump watched Friday as one of his lawyers fought to overturn a verdict finding the former president liable for sexual abuse and slander.

Trump walked into a federal appeals court quietly and passed right in front of his accuser, writer E. Jean Carroll, who was already seated at her table. He did not acknowledge her or look at her.

Attorney D. John Sauer told 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges that the civil trial in Carroll’s lawsuit was muddied by improper evidence.

“This case is a textbook example of implausible allegations being propped up by highly inflammatory, inadmissible” evidence, Sauer said, noting that the jury was allowed to consider such items as the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted years ago about grabbing women’s genitals.

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said the evidence in question was proper, and that there was plenty of proof in the nearly two-week-long trial of Carroll’s claim that Trump attacked her in a luxury department store dressing room decades ago.

“E. Jean Carroll brought this case because Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996, in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, and then defamed her in 2022 by claiming that she was crazy and made the whole thing up,” Kaplan said.

The three-judge panel did not immediately rule on Trump’s appeal of a jury’s finding that he sexually abused Carroll. Trump denies it. That jury awarded Carroll $5 million.

Trump’s lawyers say the jury’s verdict should be tossed because evidence was allowed at trial that should have been excluded and other evidence was excluded that should have been permitted.

The court is unlikely to issue a ruling before November’s presidential election.

Last January, a second jury awarded Carroll another $83.3 million in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding that they were defamatory. That jury had been instructed by the judge that it had to accept the first jury’s finding that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll. The second trial was largely held to determine how badly Carroll had been harmed by Trump’s comments and how severely he should be punished.

Trump, 77, testified less than three minutes at the trial and was not permitted to refute conclusions reached by the May 2023 jury.

The appeal of that trial’s outcome, which Trump labeled “absolutely ridiculous!” immediately afterward, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.

Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was spoiled by Trump’s public comments, which she said ignited such hate against her that she received death threats and feared going outside the upstate New York cabin where she lives.

Lawyers for Trump said in court papers that he deserves a new trial in part because the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, permitted two other women to testify about similar acts of sexual abuse they say Trump committed against them in the 1970s and in 2005.

They also argued that Kaplan wrongly disallowed evidence that Carroll lied during her deposition, and other evidence they say would reveal bias and motives to lie for Carroll and other witnesses against Trump. The verdict, they wrote, was “unjust and erroneous,” resulting from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.”

Trump has insisted that Carroll made up the story about being attacked to sell a new book. He has denied knowing her.

The Western Journal has reviewed this Associated Press story and may have altered it prior to publication to ensure that it meets our editorial standards.

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