By
Common sense suggests that Donald Trump should simply stop talking about E. Jean Carroll. The former president has plenty of other things to talk about — rumor has it that the presidential general election phase is now underway — and as his lawyers have probably explained to the Republican, it would be in his financial interests to focus his rhetorical fire elsewhere.
But Trump just can’t help himself. NBC News reported:
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday reiterated his claim that writer E. Jean Carroll had levied “false accusations” against him, even as similar remarks have resulted in large court judgments against him. Speaking at a Georgia campaign rally ... Trump reiterated a number of grievances, Carroll’s civil court victories among them.
“I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story,” he said, referencing the bond he posted last week as he appeals a jury verdict against him. Trump added, “Ninety-one million based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn’t know, never heard of, I know nothing about her.”
I can just picture the former president’s defense counsel listening to the public remarks and smacking their foreheads.
For good measure, Trump spoke to CNBC this morning and went after Carroll once more, labeling her accusations as “false,” and describing her as “Miss Bergdorf Goodman.”
To briefly recap, it was last year when a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll, and jurors awarded the writer $5 million in damages for her battery and defamation claims.
The jury did not find the defendant liable for “rape” as defined in the applicable state law, though the judge in the case later concluded that the former president, for all intents and purposes, “‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
A couple of months ago, the matter became even more serious for Trump: A separate jury concluded that the former president must pay his accuser an additional $83 million in damages for repeatedly defaming her, including $65 million in punitive damages.
Both cases are being appealed. It would be in the defendant’s interests to simply stop talking about the plaintiff.
He apparently doesn’t want to. “This woman is not a believable person,” Trump told his followers on Saturday, though jurors came to the opposite conclusion.
As a New York Times report noted, “Attacking Ms. Carroll is not free of risk for Mr. Trump: She could file a fresh defamation claim for new attacks. Her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan — who is not related to the judge — declined to comment.”
It was against this backdrop that MSNBC’s Jen Psaki asked Neal Katyal whether the former president had once again defamed Carroll. “It sure sounds like it,” the former acting solicitor general replied.
“And Jen, there are many days that I wish I was Roberta Kaplan, who is Jean Carroll’s extraordinary lawyer, she’s just so phenomenal as a lawyer. But, boy, today is the day I wish I was, because Donald Trump is basically just writing the third lawsuit,” Katyal added.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.