(Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump filed a counterlawsuit against author E. Jean Carroll this week, accusing the writer of defaming him.
The countersuit is aimed at Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Trump, which claims he defamed her by denying her claims that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the 1990s.
In response, Trump’s lawyers argued Carroll defamed him by claiming he sexually assaulted her after a jury in a civil trial found he was not liable for the rape claims.
“Due to [Carroll]’s repeated falsehoods and defamatory statements made against [Trump], [Trump] has been the subject of significant harm to his reputation, which, in turn, has yielded an inordinate amount of damages sustained as a result,” the filing said.
The suit cites a comment Carroll made on CNN a day after the jury’s decision. Carroll was asked how she felt about the jury deciding that Trump was not liable for rape. She said, “Well, I just immediately said in my own head, ‘Oh, yes, he did. Oh yes, he did.’”
Carroll made these statements “with actual malice and ill will with an intent to significantly and spitefully harm and attack” Trump’s reputation, the suit alleges.
Trump is seeking a retraction of Carroll’s statements and unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Carroll has tried to milk her case against Trump by suing him for defamation, even after the grand jury released its final decision about her allegations. She is seeking $10 million in cash payment for compensatory damages and additional in punitive damages.
“Trump’s defamatory statements post-verdict show the depth of his malice toward Carroll since it is hard to imagine defamatory conduct that could possibly be more motivated by hatred, ill will, or spite,” an attorney for Carroll wrote in the suit.
