In a conversation this Monday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” with host George Stephanopoulos, Roberta Kaplan — a lawyer for writer E. Jean Carroll — said they’re prepared to sue Donald Trump again in the event he continues his public crusades against Carroll.
Carroll already successfully alleged defamation in proceedings that produced two separate trials after Trump’s vitriolic responses to her account of him sexually assaulting her in the 1990s. Carroll’s description of Trump sexually assaulting her also was directly considered at the first trial, where a jury largely upheld the writer’s accounting of events. Trump was found liable for sexual misconduct in proceedings that produced $5 million in penalties — before the later proceedings that covered another set of defamation claims and ultimately added $83.3 million to what Trump has been ordered to pay. The latter proceedings culminated in that massive jury decision just days ago.
“All options are on the table,” Kaplan said on the air. “If we have to bring another case, we’ll bring another case. It’s just going to be more money.”
Trump continued his public antagonism against Carroll during the more recent proceedings, which unlike the first trial he attended. Carroll and her team already used other post-presidency comments from Trump to expand their defamation allegations, all-but-ensuring something in that area would move forward completely regardless of the lengthy proceedings over whether Trump’s similar vitriol as president was covered by legal protections available to presidents in a civil context. In some of the post-White House commentary that came up in court, Trump even said outright that he knew the situation was demanding he didn’t make the remarks, but he did anyway.
Kaplan also called jurors’ attention at the recently concluded trial to Trump’s boasts claiming high values for his real estate portfolio, arguing in tandem for high penalties on the ex-president. Trump’s team objected to Kaplan referencing Trump’s wild claims of value for Mar-a-Lago in Florida, but they were overruled.
