Trump blames E. Jean Carroll's own 'course of conduct' for damages in defamation trial

Attorneys for Donald Trump suggested writer E. Jean Carroll was to blame for any defamation damages after the former president denied raping her.

In the lead-up to what is expected to be Trump's second defamation trial involving Carroll, attorneys for both sides filed a joint motion this week to address pretrial issues.

Carroll and Trump offered differing statements about the case.

Carroll's statement recalled how he had "sexually assaulted her" and then smeared her when she made the allegations public.

But Trump's statement of the case blamed Carroll.

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"Contrary to Plaintiff's contention, she did not sustain any reputational or economic harm as a result of the Statements; even if she did, any harm incurred was de minimis and the result of Plaintiff's own course of conduct," Trump's statement said.

In dismissing a counterclaim against Carroll earlier this year, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan found that her allegations against Trump were "substantially true."

"As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr. Trump's motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the first trial]," the judge wrote at the time, "based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury's verdict as a whole, the jury's finding that Mr. Trump' sexually abused' Ms. Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally — in other words, that Mr. Trump in fact did 'rape' Ms. Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law."