A federal decide issued a scathing 17-page opinion on Friday shutting down former President Donald Trump’s newest efforts to delay trial in author E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case towards him.
The ruling from U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan got here in response to a request from Trump to delay trial whereas he appeals an earlier ruling within the case.
That attraction seeks to overturn Kaplan’s choice on June 29 that Trump waived presidential immunity as a protection in Carroll’s lawsuit. However on Friday, Kaplan known as that attraction “frivolous” and refused to vary the scheduled trial date of Jan. 15, 2024.
The arguments in Trump’s request are “unpersuasive” and “repeat almost verbatim” these he made in beforehand denied requests to delay the trial, Kaplan wrote. Moreover, Kaplan continued, the request “fails on each criterion” mandatory to remain the trial, together with offering proof that his attraction has any probability of success and that shifting ahead with the case on schedule would trigger him irreparable hurt.
The decide famous that Trump waited a number of years to say presidential immunity within the lawsuit, which Carroll first filed in 2019.
“By litigating this case for over three years before even raising his presidential immunity defense ― and waiting another seven months between first raising his immunity defense and moving to stay this case on that basis ― Mr. Trump effectively has forfeited any claim to irreparable harm in the absence of a stay,” Kaplan wrote.
Trump’s “loss of that defense was the product of his own decision not to raise it until the tail end of this litigation,” Kaplan added. “In other words, any purported harm resulting from his having to stand trial despite a potential claim to immunity would be entirely of his own doing.”
Nor did Trump “address any of this Court’s reasoning in rejecting his argument” or present “a single reason for the Court to find that there is any likelihood that he will succeed on appeal,” Kaplan stated.
Carroll’s defamation lawsuit facilities on her claims that Trump defamed her when he dismissed her rape allegations, implied she made up the assault to promote a e-book, and stated she wasn’t his “type.”
This lawsuit is separate from the one which went to trial this spring, wherein a Manhattan jury discovered that Trump sexually abused Carroll in a division retailer dressing room within the Nineties. The courtroom awarded $5 million in damages.
Earlier this month, Kaplan dismissed Trump’s defamation countersuit towards Carroll, saying she was inside her rights to say on CNN that Trump raped her.
