The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has handed down a ruling in President-elect Donald Trump's appeal of the verdict in E. Jean Carroll's defamation/sexual abuse civil suit against him. In a word: No.
The court declined to overturn the verdict.
A federal appeals court on Monday rejected President-elect Donald Trump's attempt to overturn a jury's verdict last year that found he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll in the mid-1990s.
The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided "Trump has not demonstrated that the district court erred in any of the challenged rulings" and "has not carried his burden to show that any claimed error or combination of claimed errors affected his substantial rights as required to warrant a new trial."
The jury in the civil case held Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and determined that, in 2022, he made defamatory statements about her. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
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Again, for those keeping track (or trying to), this was the first case tried involving these players, although it involved statements he made later (in 2022) than the initial defamation suit (which resulted in the $83.3 million verdict and is also on appeal before the Second Circuit — and also involved rulings from the same trial judge, Lewis Kaplan).
This was also the case in which the jury specifically found that Trump was not liable for rape, though they did find him liable for sexual abuse. That verdict played a critical role in Trump's defamation suit against ABC News for George Stephanopoulos' insistence that Trump had been found liable for rape while interrogating Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) as to how she could possibly support him. That suit, of course, recently resolved via a $15 million settlement.
NEW: ABC News Apologizes to Trump, Pays Large Settlement in Defamation Suit
The Second Circuit's 77-page ruling may be viewed in full below.
Carroll's attorney praised the decision:
Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, hailed Monday's decision.
"Both E. Jean Carroll and I are gratified by today's decision,:" she said in a statement. "We thank the Second Circuit for its careful consideration of the parties' arguments."
Trump has not yet commented on the ruling, though we can expect he will soon.