'Cruelty will make him less wealthy': Carroll lawyer claims another expensive judgment is coming Trump's way
The day after Donald Trump lost his defense of E. Jean Carroll's defamation case, he appeared on CNN for the town hall and insulted and mocked her again.
Speaking to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow Monday, Carroll's lawyer explained that they are working through the next steps in acting against Trump following that alleged defamation.
"So, it is definitely actionable," lawyer Robbie Kaplan said about suing Trump again. "And here, the cruelty will make him less wealthy. He is not going to get away with it another time. It's unprecedented for a person to have been held liable in defamation to keep doing the defamation. So, there aren't a lot of cases we can look to for a playbook about how to do it but suffice it to say, I have a lot of lawyers [who are] very busy looking into this, and we are weighing all of our options."
There's another case before Judge Lewis Kaplan (no relation to Carroll's lawyer) that involves Trump defaming Carroll in 2019 when he was still president. It's been working its way through the courts, and Robbie Kaplan explained that there would be news coming in that regard very soon.
"I don't know how late the people work tonight," Kaplan explained. "Two to three days max. ... We are fully pursuing that case. We got a nice, very good decision from the D.C. Court of Appeals, essentially affirming Judge Kaplan that when Trump said what he said about E. Jean in 2019, he was not acting as president. 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. We'll be able to find damages, and there the defamation damages are much higher [in that case]. That was the first statement he made, and that's what really destroyed her reputation as an advice columnist to all of her readers who trusted her and looked up to her."
Carroll was fired from Elle Magazine, which she links to Trump's public attacks.
Maddow pin-pointed Carroll's comment, saying, "Trump hurts people," which the host found unique.
"When he came on stage right after our enormous victory, and he made jokes about sexual assault — I couldn't believe the pain he was causing to thousands of people by joking about sexual assault," said Carroll. "And that's how he hurts people. That's how he hurts people. And I'd love to have Robbie Kaplan just shut him up."
Kaplan also noted that she thinks others will sue Trump for defamation. Maddow brought up Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss, both of whom Trump attacked in front of rally crowds, claiming they stole the election from him. It led to many attacks on the women that terrorized them and destroyed their lives, according to their testimony before the House Select Committee.
"Do you think the success of this case doesn't just buoy people who feel like, finally, accountability, finally truth being nailed to the wall and not let it slide? But does it have the potential to change the legal landscape for other civil cases against Trump?" Maddow asked.
Kaplan said she thinks it does.
"Because he is actually a very good defamation defendant if you are planning to sue for defamation because he lies all the time," she explained. "He lies as a matter of habit. He lies about big things. He lies about small things. And in this case, we were able to show those lies not only about it being fake news and a hoax and made-up story but even when I showed him that famous photo where he mistook E. Jean for Marla Maples, when he realized he had made the mistake he then said, 'the photo is blurry.' The photo was not blurry, but it was classic Donald Trump. And I think the jury really heard that. They really absorbed it. That's why we got a verdict in two and a half hours."
See the full interview in the videos below or at the link here.
Part 1:
Carroll 1 www.youtube.com
Part 2:
Carroll interview 2 www.youtube.com