A federal judge has denied Donald Trump’s latest attempt to dodge the trial in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit in connection with her rape accusations against the former president.
Trump’s lawyers motioned for a summary judgment in the case. If approved, it would mean that the judge would look at nothing more than the evidence presented and the statements given and make a ruling based on that.
However, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s motion, ruling that the trial must go forward.
“The contrasts between Mr. Trump’s assertions in his Carroll I answer and his October 12 statement show that a reasonable juror could find that his statement had a different effect on a reader than his denials and affirmative defense in his answer,” the judge wrote in his decision. “For one, ‘a reasonable juror could find that [Mr.] Trump was complaining of a far broader and more corrosive conspiracy than anything that was at issue in Carroll I in October 2022,’ including based on his statements that Ms. Carroll ‘completely made up a story’ that is a ‘Hoax’ and ‘changed her story from beginning to end [(in an interview where she was promoting her book)]. .. to suit the purposes of CNN and And [erson] Cooper,’ along with his comments about the judiciary and Ms. Carroll’s counsel.”
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Kaplan explained that the court doesn’t decide whether Trump’s statement is or isn’t “fair and true.”
The Court need not and does not now decide the ultimate issue of whether Mr. Trump’s statement is or is not a “fair and true.”
He added: “It suffices for the purpose of denying summary judgment that a reasonable jury could find so as a matter of fact. For the foregoing reasons, Mr. Trump’s motion for partial summary judgment is denied.”
Read the entire ruling here.
