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E. Jean Carroll could sue Donald Trump a third time for sharing web page links about her on social media, a legal expert has said.
On January 19, Trump published 30 social posts about Carroll, many of them links to her previous comments and strongly suggesting that she was boasting of her seduction powers while suing him for sexual assault. He also posted links to articles about her.
After a jury awarded her $83.3 million for defamation last Friday, Carroll said she would "absolutely" sue Trump for a third time if the opportunity arose, having previously been awarded $5 million for sexual assault and defamation.
Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor, told Newsweek that sharing links to defaming stories is also considered defamation.
"A person who republishes a defamatory statement made by others may be liable for the defamation in the original. The fact that the statement was initially made by others is not a defense," he said.
He cited the New York case of Morwitz v. Town of Warwick, in which a woman repeated an untruthful claim that a man was having sex with underage girls.
Gillers said Moritz's claim that she was merely relaying a "fact told to her" was not enough to protect her from a defamation lawsuit.
The New York Court of Appeals said in its ruling that "the fact that a particular accusation originated with a different source does not automatically furnish a license for others to repeat or publish it without regard to its accuracy or defamatory character."
He also noted the case of Thomas H. v. Paul B, in which the person accused of defamation argued that "even if they made the statements that were attributed to them, those utterances were not actionable because they had truthfully relayed their daughter's accusations" that the plaintiff was a rapist.
"The court concluded, although the third-party realized the purported statements were derived from a different source and that the speaker was merely relaying their content, the statements could still be actionable," Gillers noted.
Donald Trump made 30 posts about Carroll, or her legal action against him, on his Truth Social website on January 19, the same day he gave evidence in her defamation case.
The majority of Trump's Truth Social posts relating to Carroll were screenshots of previous comments she had made about sex or sexuality on Twitter, now X, many years ago and implying that she was a seducer.
These include a post she made on July 26, 2011, stating: "Would men have invented chastity belts, veils, and crocks if women weren't just unbelievably HOT?—Honey, you were BORN to seduce."
In another of the Carroll Twitter posts Trump shared from June 4, 2014, she said: "There is no such thing as a slut. Only sexual geniuses."
A third, from June 7, 2014, saw Carroll comment: "The kinkiest sex toy is your brain."
Newsweek contacted Trump's attorney by email on Wednesday asking about these posts. Newsweek also contacted Carroll's attorney on the same day.
On Friday, a New York City jury ordered that the former president must pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll, a retired journalist, for statements made in 2019. He said she was lying about allegations that he sexually assaulted her inside a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. That amount includes $7.3 million in compensatory damages, $11 million for reputational repair, and $65 million in punitive damages.
Trump was previously ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages last year in another civil defamation trial stemming from a denial he made about her claims in 2022. He has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and has said he will appeal the verdict. Newsweek contacted a representative for Trump by email to comment on this story.
On Monday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow asked Carroll about Trump's online behavior. She said he has been posting links online to articles that attacked the journalist and denied her claims.
Maddow said: "If it came to it, if your lawyers told you there was another case and you should go back and get more money out of him would you do it?"
"Absolutely," Carroll replied. "Absolutely."
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more