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There has been a new development in the defamation case brought against former President Donald Trump by writer E. Jean Carroll just hours after a federal jury awarded her more than $83 million in damages on Friday.
According to Breitbart News, the dress that Carroll claims she wore during Trump’s reported sexual assault in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s did not exist at the time, Trump’s lawyer pointed out.
“Carroll first went public with her story in 2019, posing for a cover of New York Magazine in the Donna Karan blazer dress that she claims she was assaulted in. However, it turns out the dress was not even available the original year that she claimed the attack happened,” the outlet reported.
Trump Attorney Boris Epshteyn told reporters outside the courtroom: “She said, this is the dress I wore in 1994. They went back, they checked. The dress wasn’t even made in 1994.”
“And that’s why the date’s moved around. This is the 80s. Is it the 90s? Is it the 2000s? President Trump has consistently stated that he was falsely accused, and he has the right to defend himself,” Epshteyn added.
Trump has also addressed the reported controversy.
“E. Jean Carroll was forced to change her story on the ‘Monica Lewinsky-type’ dress,” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
“She originally claimed that the ‘event’ happened in 1994, and that she wore the Donna Karan dress on that day. The problem is that New York Times Fact Checkers found the dress wasn’t even made by Donna Karan until long after 1994,” Trump added.
“The truth is that she doesn’t know the day, month, season, year, or decade — because it did not happen. End this Witch Hunt now!”
He added: “Until the filing of this ridiculous lawsuit against me, I knew nothing about this woman, never heard of her, never touched her, had nothing to do with her. THIS IS A FALSE ACCUSATION FORCED INTO THE PUBLIC EYE BY DEMOCRAT OPERATIVES LIKE HER LAWYER, HER FUNDERS, AND OTHERS.”
“LOOK AT HER MANY CRAZY TWEETS, THEY SAY IT ALL — Another HOAX, just like Russia, Russia, Russia. These people are ‘SICK.’ Hopefully Judge Kaplan will see the light and do what is just and proper for America!” he exclaimed.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan reportedly sparred with Trump’s attorney and spokeswoman, Alina Habba, during proceedings on Friday, according to multiple reports.
According to MSNBC’s Katie Phang:
Trump’s lawyers try to use slides of tweets that weren’t entered into evidence and Carroll objects.
Judge: You’re not showing the slide.
Habba: But, your Honor…
Judge: Sit down. You are on the verge of spending some time in the lock-up.
“Trump walked out of the courtroom during Carroll’s lawyer’s closing arguments in which her lawyer Roberta Kaplan directly criticized his actions during the trial saying that he ‘spent the entire trial continuing to engage in defamation,’” reported NBC News.
“Kaplan noted the incident in the record,” the report noted further.
Trump briefly testified on Thursday in the civil trial. According to courtroom reporters, Habba asked Trump on the stand if he maintained his denial of the alleged sexual assault by Carroll, which he affirmed. When she inquired whether he refuted the accusations, Trump responded, “Precisely correct.”
“She said something. I consider it a false accusation,” he said, an answer Kaplan struck from the record, citing the previous trial’s verdict that Trump had, in fact, sexually abused Carroll — and the judge’s specific rulings that Trump was barred from trying to re-litigate that issue in this trial.
WATCH:
After the judge didn’t allow me to use E. Jean Carrol’s heinous tweets as evidence and threatened my lawyer, Alina Habba. I stormed out of the courtroom. Judge Kaplan is a political opposition who isn’t allowing evidence against #EJeanCarroll in the case!
pic.twitter.com/uwCyWxzCwq— Donald J. Trump (Parody) (@realDonParody) January 26, 2024
Habba then asked if Trump wanted to hurt Carroll, to which he replied, “No. I wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly, the presidency.” Kaplan also struck that from the record.
According to legal reporter Adam Klasfeld, Trump “sneered at the spectators in the gallery” on his way out of the courtroom and said, “It’s not America. It’s not America. This is not America.”
Kaplan reprimanded Trump for speaking loudly and interrupting his attorney before he testified, “I never met this woman.”
