Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump reacts to his supporters as he takes the stage during a “Get Out the Vote” rally March 2, 2024 in Richmond, Virginia.
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Former President Donald Trump on Saturday stood by his 2019 statement that writer E. Jean Carroll had made a “completely false accusation” against him, even though similar claims led to him losing a libel trial in January.
On the campaign trail at a rally in Rome, Georgia, Trump pointed to the $91.6 million bail he posted on March 8, three days before his deadline to pay $83 in damages. $3 million to Carroll for defaming her in statements he made as president after denying her accusation that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.
Carroll first made sexual assault allegations against Trump in 2019, before another civil trial in May 2023 in which a New York jury found that the former president sexually abused Carroll but did not rape her.
“I just posted $91 million in bail, $91 million for a fake story, a completely made-up story,” Trump said, adding that the verdict was “based on false allegations that a woman over me that I knew nothing about.” I don’t know, I’ve never heard of it, I don’t know anything about it.
The 77-year-old made similar comments in a June 22, 2019 statement to MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin on Saturday
“She wrote a book, she said things, and when I denied it, I said, ‘It’s so crazy, it’s wrong.’ I’m being sued for defamation,” Trump said Saturday, before referring to New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which has been repealed. The state’s statute of limitations is one year, allowing survivors of sexual assault to file suit regardless of how long the statute of limitations is suspected abuse occurred.
“They changed the law that allowed women to come back, like indefinitely…then she went back and said maybe in the mid-90s, I have no idea,” he said.
Added to the $83.3 million in damages is a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict that Carroll won against Trump last year. In February, the former president was also ordered to pay $464 million in damages in a separate fraud case against Trump and top executives at his company – and he plans to appeal all three verdicts.
Trump also expressed concern about Lewis Kaplan, the federal judge who denied his request to stay the defamation verdict, calling him a “Trump-confused, angry man.”
Both Carroll’s legal team and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
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2024-03-10 18:01:36
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