NEW YORK — E. Jean Carroll, an author and advice columnist who recently won a $5 million judgment against Donald Trump in a civil sexual assault and defamation case, is seeking damages from the former president for disparaging comments he made about her during a recent CNN town hall.
Attorneys for Carroll filed an amended complaint Monday in a separate, still-pending defamation lawsuit. They said they would seek at least $10 million in damages for comments Trump made at the prime-time event on May 10 and for the initial defamation that Carroll alleged.
The lawsuit was originally filed over comments Trump made about Carroll in 2019, when he was president and she had first publicly accused him of a decades-old sexual assault. The lawsuit has been delayed by appellate litigation having to do with whether Trump is shielded from liability because he was president at the time he made those comments.
In the CNN special this month, Trump — who left office in 2021 and is again seeking the White House — echoed some of his past comments about Carroll, including that he had never met her before, that she was lying and that she was mentally unstable.
At various points, he denied that anything happened with Carroll but also seemed to shame her for the assault she says happened in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room after a chance encounter.
“What kind of a woman meets somebody and brings them up and within minutes, you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room, okay?” Trump said.
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End of carouselWho is E. Jean Carroll?
E. Jean Carroll is a writer and former magazine columnist who has accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store in the 1990s. She first publicly accused Trump of rape in a memoir she published in 2019, while Trump was president. Trump said he’s never met Carroll and denies her allegations.
What was this case about?
Carroll filed two lawsuits against Trump: one in 2019 for defamation, and a second lawsuit filed in 2022 accusing Trump of sexual assault and defaming her again after he left office. The second case went on trial on April 25.
Did Donald Trump testify?
No. But last fall, Trump privately answered questions about the alleged incident under oath. Some of that tape could be played at the trial, including when he mistook a photo of Carroll for his former wife, Marla, despite saying Carroll is “not my type.” Carroll did testify.
What was at stake?
This was a civil, not a criminal trial, so unlike the felony case against Trump underway in Manhattan, Trump did not face jail time if he lost the case. Carroll sought monetary damages, and the jury awarded her $5 million.
Trump and sexual misconduct allegations
More than a dozen women have accused Trump of varying degrees of sexual misconduct. Trump has denied every sexual harassment claim against him.
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On Tuesday, the day after Carroll’s complaint was amended, Trump disparaged her again on Truth Social, his social media platform, saying he “wouldn’t want to know or touch her” and that she had peddled a “Fake, Made Up Story.”
“IT NEVER HAPPENED, IS A TOTAL SCAM, UNFAIR TRIAL!” Trump wrote.
CNN has faced criticism for the staging of the town hall, which allowed Trump to offer his own version of news events in front of a friendly Republican audience.
A day earlier, a Manhattan jury had found Trump liable for sexually assaulting Carroll decades ago in the department store and for defaming her after he left the White House. The jurors awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
“Trump, undeterred by the jury’s verdict, persisted in maliciously defaming Carroll yet again” at the CNN town hall, Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote in the revised lawsuit filed Monday. “Those statements resulted in enthusiastic cheers and applause from the audience on live TV.”
The lawsuit has been locked up in an appeals court fight over whether the Justice Department can take over as counsel for Trump. His lawyers argue that Trump’s 2019 responses to questions from journalists about the allegations were part of his government job. If a court agrees with that stance, it will effectively put an end to the original claims because the government would be immune from liability.
Trump and his attorneys have adamantly denied that he assaulted Carroll. At trial, his attorney Joe Tacopina alleged that Carroll and two of her longtime friends concocted the story because they disagreed with Trump’s politics.
The friends — Carol Martin and Lisa Birnbach — told jurors that Carroll confided in them about being raped by Trump shortly after the assault allegedly happened. Both said that they never discussed it again until Carroll — who never filed a police report or tried to press criminal charges — publicly accused Trump in her memoir and in an excerpt of her book published in a magazine.
John Wagner contributed to this report.
