Trump town hall slurs against E. Jean Carroll ‘definitely actionable,’ lawyer says

Writer E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer says former President Trump’s comments bashing Carroll during his recent CNN town hall are “definitely actionable” after a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against her. 

“So it’s definitely actionable. And here the cruelty will make him less wealthy. He is not going to get away with it another time,” attorney Roberta Kaplan said on MSNBC’s “The Interview,” appearing alongside Carroll.

“It’s unprecedented for a person to have been held liable in defamation to keep doing the defamation, so there are not a lot of cases that we can look to for a playbook about how to do it,” she said. “But, suffice to say, I have a lot of lawyers who are very busy looking into this, and we are weighing all of our options.”

Carroll had accused Trump of raping her in a New York City department store in the mid-1990s and then defaming her when he denied the allegations.

A jury found Trump did not commit rape but determined he was liable for for sexual abuse and defamation. The former president was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages. 

But during an on-air appearance for a CNN town hall event just after the verdict, Trump attacked Carroll, labeling the accusations a “fake story” and calling Carroll a “whack job.” Kaplan is now considering bringing another defamation case over the new comments.

“We were so proud to be in America and see democracy actually work,” Carroll said of the liability finding on MSNBC. She called the day of the verdict “the happiest day” of her life.