Judge shuts down Trump lawyer’s bid to throw out defamation suit: 'Motion is denied'
US District Judge Lewis F. Kaplan — who is overseeing proceedings in writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial against former President Donald Trump — just handed another loss to the ex-president's legal team.
According to the Messenger, Trump attorney Alina Habba once again tried to have the case against her client dismissed on the fifth day of the ongoing trial. After instructing jurors that Trump has already been found guilty of sexual abuse and defamation, the trial's penalty phase began on January 16. The jury in Kaplan's courtroom will only be deciding how much in damages Trump should be ordered to pay. Earlier today, Kaplan quickly rejected Habba's bid to throw out the previous verdict.
"The motion is denied," Kaplan said on Thursday.
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Habba's most recent motion is just the latest of many Hail-Mary passes she's thrown in an attempt to evade accountability for the 45th president of the United States. Previously, Habba motioned for a mistrial based on the fact that Carroll had deleted some of the threats Trump supporters sent her after he defamed the former Elle columnist in 2019. The Messenger reported that Kaplan was unbothered by that argument, and stated that Carroll had no obligations to keep those threats unless she wanted to preserve them for a separate lawsuit at a later date.
"Would you like me to clarify?" Habba asked at the time her mistrial motion was denied.
"No," Kaplan responded.
Trump may be testifying in the trial ahead of its conclusion, though it's unclear when he would take the witness stand. The former president has consistently disregarded the previous verdicts against him, in which he was made to pay Carroll a $5 million settlement for sexually abusing her in a New York department store in the 1990s. The defamation stems from 2019, when Trump suggested Carroll fabricated her rape allegations for financial reasons.
READ MORE: Judge slams door on last-minute attempt to delay Tuesday's E. Jean Carroll trial
