Donald Trump continues to dig a deeper hole for himself

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Donald Trump is showing no sign that he’s ready to stop his attacks on former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll, despite the former president putting himself at risk of further lawsuits.

Carroll successfully sued Trump for sexual battery over claims he assaulted her at a New York department store Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s, and then defamed her while denying the accusations. On May 9, a jury ordered him to pay Carroll $5 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

A day after a New York jury found Trump liable for assault and defamation of Carroll, the former appeared in a CNN town hall, where he again suggested the attack was a ” fraud” and Carroll is a “sham job.”

Carroll is now seeking an amendment to a separate defamation lawsuit he filed in 2019 against Trump to show his CNN town hall remarks. Carroll is seeking an additional $10 million in monetary damages because the former president “doubled down” on his “degrading” comments.

Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a rally to support local candidates at the Mohegan Sun Arena on September 3, 2022, in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Experts say E. Jean Carroll could continue to file defamation lawsuits against Trump if she continues to insult him and deny the attack happened. Spencer Platt/Getty Images

“Trump’s defamatory statements after the verdict show the depth of his malice toward Carroll because it is difficult to imagine defamatory behavior that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, malice, or exasperation,” the proposed complaint said.

“This conduct supports a massive punitive damages award in Carroll’s favor to punish Trump, to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same.”

However, a day after news broke of Carroll’s attempt to amend her defamation lawsuit, Trump continued to publicly attack and insult his accuser and dismiss the civil trial’s rulings.

“I don’t know E. Jean Carroll, I’ve never met or touched her (except in a celebrity line with her African American husband whom she obnoxiously called ‘Ape,’) I don’t want to know or touch her. , I don’t she was abused or raped or taken to a dressing room 25 years ago in a crowded department store where the doors were LOCKED, she had no idea when, or anything was done to her, except to deny her Fake , Made Up Story , which he wrote in a book,” Trump posted on Truth Social on May 23.

“THIS DIDN’T HAPPEN, A TOTAL SCAM, UNFAIR TRIAL!”

Barbara McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan and former US attorney, said that Trump is at risk that Carroll will launch new cases against him every time he mentions the results of the civil trial.

“The first rule of damage control is when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Trump is doing the opposite,” McQuade told Newsweek.

“Every time he denies sexually assaulting Carroll, he creates a new legal claim for him. In addition, now that a jury has found that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll, he can assert the claim of the claim, that is, a jury would be instructed to assume that the fact is true.

“The only way to stop Trump from breaking the law with impunity is to follow through on these claims,” ​​McQuade added.

It’s unclear whether Carroll plans to file additional lawsuits against Trump over his Truth Social post.

The “monkey” comment from Trump in the social media post refers to a section of Carroll’s 2019 book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal—in which she first detailed the Bergdorf Goodman attack—in which she describes calling her ex-husband John Johnson, who is Black, “a monkey” during an argument.

Trump’s lawyers tried to introduce the comments as evidence against Carroll during the civil trial, which Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected.

Employment and defamation lawyer Camron Dowlatshahi said in normal circumstances a defendant found liable for defamation would be “careful and thoughtful” in their subsequent public comments. “That certainly doesn’t apply to Donald Trump,” Dowlatshahi told Newsweek.

In Carroll’s latest amended lawsuit against Trump, his lawyers said the former president had an audience at a CNN town hall “applause and laugh uproariously” at his comments about Carroll in which he asked: “What kind of woman who meets someone and brings them up, and in a few minutes you’re playing hanky-panky in a dressing room?”

The complaint added: “Trump used a national platform to disparage and ridicule Carroll. He railed at a laughing audience as he dismissed her violent sexual assaults, called Carroll names, implied that Carroll requests that he be struck down, and that the jury’s verdict be dismissed. Carroll’s vindication.”

Carroll’s attorneys also requested a speedy resolution of her attempts to seek an additional $10 million from Trump, “while she remains in good health and before Donald Trump’s time and attention is completely consumed by his campaign to the presidency.”

Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s legal team for comment via email.

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