Judge bars Trump from using 'irrelevant' evidence at trial
With the 2024 Iowa Caucuses now underway, GOP frontrunner Donald Trump maintains a sizable lead over his rivals in countless polls — despite facing four criminal indictments and a wide range of civil lawsuits, one of which is former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll's second defamation case against the former president.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan laid out some rules in that civil case on Sunday, January 14, excluding as evidence things he considers "irrelevant." The trial to determine the amount of damages Trump owes is scheduled to begin on January 16.
Trump's legal team, Kaplan ruled, cannot include an interview that Carroll did with CNN's Anderson Cooper in 2019. Nor will Trump or his lawyers be allowed to suggest that Carroll hoped to "garner media attention" for her book.
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"Ahead of the civil trial," Newsweek's Ewan Palmer notes, "Kaplan said that Trump's lawyers could not try and argue to the jury that the former president did not rape or sexually assault Carroll, as it was not relevant to the defamation case.
Carroll's lawyers then wrote to the judge accusing the former president's attorneys of trying to 'circumvent' the ruling by introducing evidence that would try and 'prejudice' Carroll's versions of events or attack her character."
Palmer adds, "This includes a 2019 interview Carroll did on CNN in which she said that 'most people think of rape as sexy' and they 'think of the fantasies.' Trump has frequently misconstrued these comments to suggest that Carroll enjoyed being sexually assaulted, or thinks rape is 'sexy' rather than discussing views others may hold."
Carroll alleges that Trump tried to rape her in a Manhattan department store, Bergdorf Goodman, in 1996. A jury awarded the former Elle columnist $5 million in damages in May 2023 in her first lawsuit against Trump, and the trial for the second will determine how much he owes her in that case.
READ MORE: US appeals court strikes down Trump’s immunity argument in E. Jean Carroll case
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