Last month, Donald Trump became the first U.S. president in history to be indicted on criminal charges. This month he was found guilty of sexual assaulting and defaming journalist E. Jean Carroll. He has plenty of other legal and financial woes still in the works. All the bad news would sour most people on a politician. Not Trump fans. They apparently love it when he’s found guilty of crimes. Now there’s yet another reason for them to adore him.
As per The New York Times, E. Jean Carroll is once again suing Trump, this time only for defamation. On May 10, one day after the trial ended, Trump took part in a notorious CNN town hall. There he addressed the verdict — which again was in part about defamation — calling Carroll’s story “fake” and “made-up.” He also called Carroll a “wack job” and declared the trial a “rigged deal.”
After Trump’s rant, many expected Carroll and her attorneys to drag him back to court. And so they are. The court filing on Monday said that Trump’s latest defamatory comments “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.”
In the filing, Carroll and her lawyers say they seek a “very substantial punitive damages award,” so as to deter him from engaging in further defamation, and to deter others from doing the same.”
In a brief interview with the press, Carroll’s lawyer Roberta A. Kaplan stressed that Trump’s statements came “literally the day after the verdict,” which made the filing all the more pressing. “It makes a mockery of the jury verdict and our justice system if he can just keep on repeating the same defamatory statements over and over again.”
Perhaps Trump will respond to the news with further defamations, trapping himself, Carroll, and their respective lawyers in a permanent defamation loop.
(Via NYT)