E Jean Carroll’s lawyer suggests new lawsuit is ‘on the table’ after Trump attacks her again

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Lawyers for E Jean Carroll have hinted that a new defamation lawsuit could be “on the table” after Donald Trump attacked her again in one of his recent tirades on Truth Social.

On the eve of closing arguments in his hush money trial, the former president used the Truth Social platform to wish all “human scum” a “Happy Memorial Day.”

“Happy Memorial Day to all, including the human scum working so hard to destroy our once great country, and the radical left, the Trump-hating federal judge in New York who, believe it or not, presided over TWO separate trials awarding a woman I had never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event 25 years ago doesn’t count!) $91 MILLION for ‘LIBEL’,” he wrote, adding to his growing list of defamatory statements about Ms. Carroll.

“She did not know when the so-called incident had taken place – sometime in the 1990s – never reported it to the police, was not required to produce the ‘dress’ she threatened me with (it was negative!), and sang my praises for the first half of her CNN interview with Alison Cooper, but changed her mind for the second half – man, I wonder why (UNDER APPELLATION!)?

“The rape charge was thrown out by a jury! Or Arthur Engoron, the crazy New York State judge who fined me nearly $500 million (ON APPEAL) for doing nothing wrong, applying a law that had never been applied before, awarding me NO JURY, Mar-a-Lago for $18,000,000 – now for Merchan!”

Robert Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s attorney, responded quickly in a statement first published by The New York Times Journalist Maggie Haberman on X.

“We have said several times since the last jury verdict in January that all options are on the table,” she said.

“And that still applies today – all options are on the table.”

Despite Mr Trump’s false claims in his Truth Social post, a civil court found last year that he sexually assaulted Ms Carroll in 1996 at the Bergdorf Goodman luxury department store in Manhattan.

Ms. Carroll said she and Mr. Trump bumped into each other by chance and were talking before Mr. Trump pushed her against a wall in a dressing room and sexually assaulted her.

The jury also found that he defamed the former Elle magazine columnist when she went public with the allegations. The verdict awarded her $5 million.

A second civil defamation lawsuit in January found that Mr Trump had defamed Ms Carroll when he accused her of lying about the attack.

The former president was ordered to pay Ms. Carroll $83.3 million in damages in the trial.

Despite the verdicts, Trump apparently cannot stop his attacks on Ms. Carroll and has filed an appeal.

His tirade came hours before closing arguments were to begin in his hush money criminal trial in Manhattan.

The former president is accused of 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election – with the aim of silencing her about an alleged sexual experience in 2006, months after Melania Trump gave birth to Barron.

Prosecutors allege that Trump’s “fixer” Michael Cohen paid the $130,000 on his behalf and that Trump reimbursed him the money after moving into the White House. He allegedly fraudulently claimed the repayments as legal expenses.

The charge was upgraded to a serious crime because prosecutors accuse the former president of committing these crimes in the context of another crime: influencing the outcome of the 2016 elections.

After weeks of testimony, the trial is now nearing its end. The jury is expected to begin deliberating on Wednesday and decide Trump’s fate.