Carroll may sue Trump a third time after ‘vile’ comments on CNN
E. Jean Carroll is weighing whether to file a new defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump in the wake of his diatribe against her during a CNN town hall Wednesday night, when he said her claim of a decades-old sexual assault was “fake” and a “made-up story,” her lawyer said Thursday.
Trump’s comments on CNN came one day after a federal jury in Manhattan awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after finding Trump liable for sexually abusing her in the mid-1990s and liable for defaming her last year when he described her claim of assault as a “complete con job,” a “Hoax and a lie” in a social media post.
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Carroll said Thursday morning that she had been asleep as Trump talked about her on the town hall program. She said that her lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, had sent her the transcript of his comments, and that she had read only the first paragraph.
“It’s just stupid. It’s just disgusting, vile, foul. It wounds people,” Carroll said in an interview with The New York Times, adding that she had been “insulted by better people.”
Carroll said she had been infuriated when her longtime stylist told her that her 15-year-old son was talking about what Trump had said.
“I am upset on the behalf of young men in America,” Carroll said. “They cannot listen to this balderdash and this old-timey view of women, which is a cave-man view.”
In addition to the case that ended Tuesday, Carroll has an earlier defamation suit against Trump that is still pending. Trump has argued in that case that he cannot be sued because he made those comments in his official capacity as president.
On Thursday, Kaplan said no decision had been made on whether a new defamation suit would be filed in light of Trump’s latest comments.
