Lawyers for former President Donald Trump filed a motion to have author E. Jean Carroll's second defamation claim against him dismissed in court Thursday.
In the filing, Trump's lawyers argue the claim "should be dismissed with prejudice" because they say his comments from October 2022 were simply a reiteration of his response to Carroll's initial defamation lawsuit against him, which was filed in 2019.
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The defamation claim by Carroll stems from an Oct. 12, 2022, statement from Trump where he called the lawsuit a "complete con job."
"A statement that merely summarizes a party’s pleadings is equally protected," Trump's lawyers wrote in the filing.
In the initial lawsuit, as with the 2022 lawsuit, Carroll alleged Trump made defamatory statements by claiming he never raped the author. Trump's team argued that his denials cited in the 2019 lawsuit were made as part of his job as president.
In recent weeks, the Trump team has moved to block testimony from other individuals accusing the former president of sexual assault and failed to come to an agreement to provide DNA in one of the lawsuits.
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Carroll alleges that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied the accusations against him.
The lawsuit also includes a battery claim for the alleged rape, using a recently passed New York law that allows victims to sue alleged abusers after the statute of limitations expired. Trump has contended the law violates due process laws in the New York Constitution.