Former President Donald Trump cannot assert presidential immunity from a defamation lawsuit by writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape, a US appeal court ruled on Wednesday, dealing him another setback in litigation she has pursued.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan upheld a federal judge’s decision to reject Trump’s claim of immunity, finding Trump had waited too long to raise it as a defence.
Trump’s lawyers in the case, Michael Madaio and Alina Habba, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Carroll in the lawsuit sought at least US$10 million in damages from Trump over comments he made in June 2019, when he was president, after she first publicly accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Trump denied knowing Carroll, said she was not his “type,” and that she made up the rape claim to promote her coming memoir.
The former Elle magazine columnist sued in November 2019, but Trump waited until December 2022 before asserting that absolute presidential immunity shielded him from her lawsuit. Under this, a president has complete immunity from many types of civil lawsuits while in office.
Trump found liable for defamation in rape accuser Carroll’s second lawsuit
Trump found liable for defamation in rape accuser Carroll’s second lawsuit
In June, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan rejected Trump’s bid to dismiss Carroll’s case and later refused to let Trump raise an immunity defence, citing the delay in seeking to invoke it and the public interest in accountability.
The 2nd Circuit on Wednesday said those decisions were correct.
“A three-year-delay is more than enough, under our precedents, to qualify as ‘undue,’” a three-judge panel wrote in its opinion.
E. Jean Carroll seeks new damages from Trump over post-verdict statements
E. Jean Carroll seeks new damages from Trump over post-verdict statements
Trump’s appeal was heard on an expedited basis, ahead of a scheduled January 16, 2024, trial.
He has pursued a similar immunity defence in his federal criminal case in Washington, in which he is accused of unlawfully trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
Carroll has already won one civil trial against Trump. In May, a jury in a second lawsuit awarded her US$5 million for sexual assault and defamation after Trump last October again denied her accusations. Trump is appealing that verdict.
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US jury finds Donald Trump liable in abuse and defamation case involving writer E. Jean Carroll
US jury finds Donald Trump liable in abuse and defamation case involving writer E. Jean Carroll
On September 6, Kaplan ruled that the jury’s findings in May applied to Carroll’s first lawsuit, making Trump’s denial defamatory. That left for trial only the issue of how much money Trump should pay Carroll in damages.
Trump is the front runner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in the 2024 US election despite facing four federal and state criminal indictments. He has pleaded not guilty in those cases.