E. Jean Carroll adds Trump's CNN comments to defamation case

E. Jean Carroll asked a civil court to consider comments former President Donald Trump made on CNN's town hall in an ongoing defamation lawsuit that is separate from the one settled on May 9.

In a filing Monday, she asked the court to consider the comments he made the day after she was awarded $5 million in damages.

"The proposed amendment also adds allegations concerning the verdict in Carroll II and Trump's public response to that verdict, which involved repeating on CNN the statements that Carroll II jury found to be defamatory, allegations that we believe are now directly relevant to the issue of punitive damages on the defamation claim in Carroll I," the filing said.

The $5 million damages were awarded on May 9 – Trump's legal team has filed an appeal. Monday’s filing involved a separate defamation lawsuit , filed before the one decided on May 9. It involves separate comments, but it has been delayed by appeals and arguments.

On May 10, Trump went on CNN and against called her account “fake” and a “made-up story.”

The defamation cases related to Carroll's claim that the former president raped her decades ago, and his denials, made in 2019. There was an extensive legal battle because Trump claimed he was president at the time and thus couldn't be sued.

The Justice Department said in Sept. 2020, when Trump was still president, that he acted in his official capacity. The Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals refused to get involved, remanding the case go back to Judge Kaplan to rule on the defamation.

That case now returns to Judge Kaplan, the same judge who presided over the May 9 decision.

"We are quite confident that will be affirmed, and then we'll be able to move forward with damages in that case. We don't even need a finding of liability because we already have it," Carroll's lawyer Robbie Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, explained to MSNBC's Rachel Maddow.

She explained that this case is the first instance of defamation, and the most recent verdict related to a second time that Trump defamed Carroll. For that reason, Robbie Kaplan thinks that the first case will yield a much higher dollar amount in damages because it was the first time Trump attacked Carroll. It was also the case in which Carroll linked the impact to her career and business.

Kaplan also explained to Maddow that she was working with other legal scholars to decide whether Trump could be sued a third time for breaking the defamation laws for what he said during the CNN Town Hall. She explained that there isn't a lot of case law around people continuously defaming the same person over and over again. Typically they stop after losing a lawsuit, she told Maddow.