Trump lawyers to ask appeals court to toss judgment in E. Jean Carroll case

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump will appear before a federal appeals panel on Friday to argue that a $5 million judgment finding him liable for sexually abusing and defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll was “unjust” and should be thrown out.

The case is one of two in which unanimous federal juries awarded Carroll a total of more than $88 million. 

In the May 2023 trial, jurors heard evidence related Carroll’s allegation that in the mid-1990s, Trump sexually abused her in a department store dressing room and defamed her after she went public with the story in 2019.

The second trial, which resulted in an $83 million judgment in January of this year, revolved around additional accusations of defamation. 

In his appeal of the first judgment, which Trump’s attorneys are arguing Friday, they claimed the judge issued “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.” They said two of Carroll’s friends should not have been allowed to testify. The friends said Carroll confided in them in the 1990s, shortly after the alleged attack. Trump has denied all wrongdoing.

Trump’s lawyers also said two other women should not have been allowed on the stand. Carroll’s attorneys called Jessica Leeds and Natasha Stoynoff, who testified about alleged abuse by Trump that bore similarities to Carroll’s accusations.

Carroll’s attorneys called Trump’s appeal a demand for “a do-over” with “drive-by assertions of error and sweeping complaints of unfairness.”

Lawyers for Trump, the Republican nominee for president, will have 10 minutes to argue their case before a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit panel of three judges appointed by former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both Democrats.

Carroll’s attorney will also have 10 minutes.