Already $91 Million in the Hole, Donald Trump Decides to Defame E. Jean Carroll Some More
After Donald Trump was ordered to pay a whopping $83.3 million for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll—who he’d already been ordered to pay $5 million for defaming and sexually abusing—he stopped calling her a liar in public and saying other things about her that could add to his damages tab. The deterrent, in other words, worked. Or at least it was working, because over the weekend, the ex-president decided to start slandering Carroll again, effectively daring a judge to make him pay up even more.
At a rally on Saturday in Georgia, Trump told the crowd: “I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story. $91 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. She wrote a book, she said things. And when I denied it, I said, ‘It’s so crazy. It’s false.’ I get sued for defamation. That’s where it starts.” (The figure is $91.6 million because it includes interest.)
Two days later, during an appearance on CNBC, Trump referred to Carroll as “Ms. Bergdorf Goodman, a person I’d never met,” adding: “I have no idea who she is, except one thing, I got sued. From that point on I said, ‘Wow, that’s crazy, what this is.’” He continued, saying: “I got charged, I was given a false accusation and had to post a $91 million bond on a false accusation.” As a jury concluded in May, Trump very much has met Carroll and sexually abused her in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman, and it was his insistence otherwise following that decision that led to the $80-plus million judgment against him.
Carroll has said she would “absolutely” sue Trump again, and on Monday, her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, told The New York Times: “The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years. As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client.”
It’s not a lie if Republicans believe it
Mocking someone’s stutter is fine though
