US appeals court panel hands Trump another loss in E. Jean Carroll case

A 2nd Circuit US Court of Appeals panel just rejected former President Donald Trump's latest attempt to delay his January defamation trial in New York.

In a Thursday filing from 2nd Circuit judges José A. Cabranes (a Clinton appointee), Denny Chin (an Obama appointee) and Maria Araújo Khan (a Biden appointee), Trump's motion to stay the appellate court's rejection of his immunity argument was rejected. Effectively, this means that after the former president's lawyers failed to convince the court that Trump had absolute immunity from civil actions, they filed a last-ditch motion to ask the court to pause — or "stay" — that ruling from going into effect ahead of the January 16 trial. The former president's lawyers argued a 90-day stay was necessary while they considered their options for appeal.

"Trump had asked for the stay — and to delay the January trial — while he considered appealing to SCOTUS," tweeted Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney.

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Writer E. Jean Carroll claimed that before he was president, Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the 1990s. In 2019, while Trump was president, he claimed that Carroll had fabricated the allegations and suggested she was motivated by money. Earlier this year, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and ordered the 45th president of the United States to pay his accuser $5 million.

The defamation trial for Trump's 2019 statements is scheduled for January 16 — one day after the Iowa Caucuses. The trial will mark the former president's second civil trial in New York in three months. Trump is currently in the midst of an ongoing civil fraud trial in which New York Attorney General Letitia James accused the ex-president and his real estate company of submitting falsified statements to state authorities meant to artificially inflate the value of his real estate portfolio.

In that case, Judge Arthur Engoron has already ruled that Trump committed widespread fraud, and stripped him of his ability to be an officer of any New York-based corporation. While an appeals court upheld Engoron's fraud ruling, it reversed his order taking away Trump's ability to do business in New York pending the final outcome of the trial.

READ MORE: US appeals court strikes down Trump's immunity argument in E. Jean Carroll case