🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer who represented writer E. Jean Carroll in a recent defamation case against Donald Trump, warned the former president against continuing to defame her client in similar ways.
Earlier this month, a New York City jury found in favor of Carroll in a civil defamation suit against Trump. Carroll had previously accused the former president of raping her in a department store changing room in the mid-1990s, and later sued him for defamation after he accused her of lying about the encounter for personal gain. The jury found Trump civilly liable on charges related to sexually abusing Carroll, but stopped short of doing so for other charges specifically regarding rape. As part of the decision, Carroll is to be rewarded $5 million in damages, pending appeal attempts from Trump.
The night after the verdict was announced, Trump appeared on CNN for a controversy-laden town hall event. During the town hall, he was asked about the defamation case and proceeded to repeat claims and statements he made during the litigation process. This included claims that he had never met Carroll and saying that her claims were "fake" and a "made-up story."
Due to the similarity of the statements, Carroll and Kaplan have confirmed that they are weighing the possibility of bringing Trump to court again over defamation. In an interview with Dahlia Lithwick for Slate's Amicus podcast, Kaplan discussed Trump's town hall statements and cited a legal principle that could jeopardize his possibility of mounting a defense in a further trial.
"I knew he would continue to deny it. But once the jury came back and the CNN town hall was on, we knew they were going to ask about it," Kaplan said. "And we knew he wasn't going to say, 'OK, now I admit it, I was wrong. I'm so sorry E. Jean, that I did that to you.' We knew that wasn't gonna happen."
She continued: "I think I was a little stunned that he used exactly the same language. He basically repeated the defamation in ways that make it very easy for us to not have to prove a future case on the merits, because we're gonna get what's called collateral estoppel or issue preclusion. So that wasn't maybe the wisest thing for him to do."
Kaplan cited a legal principle that is alternately known as both collateral estoppel and issue preclusion, which states that an issue that has been "validly, finally, and actually" litigated in a prior case cannot be litigated again. In essence, Kaplan said that Trump and his legal team would face severe limitations in arguing that his town hall comments were not defamation, given their similarity to the comments at the center of the previous case in which a jury sided with Carroll.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's press team via email for comment.
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more