A lawyer for E. Jean Carroll said they are considering suing Donald Trump again over comments he made in a CNN town hall that took place one day after a jury ruled in favor of the former Elle columnist’s sexual battery and defamation lawsuit.
Speaking to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, attorney Roberta Kaplan said a team of lawyers is “weighing all of our options” after the former president repeated his attacks against Carroll during the May 10 town hall.
There were fears that Trump would use his appearance on CNN to insult and defame Carroll as the Q&A session took place one day after he was found liable for sexually abusing Carroll at a New York Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s, and for defaming her while denying the accusations.
“This is a fake story. Made up story,” Trump said during the CNN town hall. “I have no idea who the hell she is. She’s a wack job.”
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Speaking to Maddow, Kaplan said that Carroll’s legal team may file new suits against Trump as his remarks on May 10 are “definitely actionable.”
“And here the cruelty will make him less wealthy,” Kaplan said. “He’s not going to get away with it another time.
“It’s unprecedented for a person to have been held liable in defamation, to keep doing the defamation. So there’s not a lot of cases that we can look to for a playbook about how to do it, 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.”
Kaplan previously suggested that her client is considering suing Trump again over the comments he made about her during the CNN town hall.
“Everything’s on the table, obviously, and we have to give serious consideration to it,” Kaplan told The New York Times.
Trump was also heavily criticized for making light of the sexual assault he was found liable for, while again denying the abuse against Carroll took place.
“What kind of woman meets somebody and brings them up, and within minutes you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room?” Trump said, prompting laughter from the New Hampshire audience.
Other legal experts previously suggested that Carroll should sue Trump again in the wake of the town hall.
“I hate that CNN allowed E. Jean Carroll’s name to be dragged through the mud again by this terrible man. Sure she could sue him for defamation again,” tweeted Sherrilyn Ifill, a lawyer and the former director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
“That doesn’t change the hurt & humiliation at the laughter, and at the knowledge that CNN was willing to expose her to this.”
However, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman suggested there may not be much need for Carroll to file a fresh claim.
“Lots of questions about [whether] Carroll can sue again for new defamation. Yes, & it would be interesting to do so & continue to add counts,” Litman tweeted. “But I doubt she will: she can now claim vindication, and why rock that boat? Plus her damages [would] date only from the new defamation I.E. very small.”
Newsweek has contacted Trump’s legal team for comment via email.
