Obama-era acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal on Sunday suggested Donald Trump may have crossed the line once again with his latest verbal attack of E. Jean Carroll — and warned the former president may now face a third defamation lawsuit from the writer.
Trump, during a campaign rally in Rome, Georgia, on Saturday, railed against having to post a nearly $92 million bond in his appeal against the $83.3 million in damages that he was ordered to pay in January for defaming the columnist.
It followed Trump last year being ordered to pay Carroll $5 million after a jury found him liable for sexual assault after she accused him of raping her in the 1990s, and defamation when he denied the claims and attacked Carroll’s character.
“91 million based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about,” Trump raged among other derogatory comments at the weekend.
MSNBC’s Jen Psaki asked Katyal if Trump had defamed Carroll again.
“It sure sounds like it,” Katyal replied.
“And Jen there are many days that I wish I was Roberta Kaplan, who is E. Jean Carroll’s extraordinary lawyer, she has been so phenomenal as a lawyer. But, boy, today is the day I wish I was because Donald Trump is basically just writing the third lawsuit that she’s going to file right now,” he added.
Katyal said Carroll would be “absolutely within her rights” to bring a third lawsuit against Trump.
“Remember, Trump lost in front of a jury of his peers on this question of whether he had defamed E. Jean Carroll and now he is doing it again,” he said. “And I’m sure she is sitting there scribbling it all down and ready to go.”
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann agreed with Katyal’s assessment, saying there could well be grounds for more legal action against the four-times-indicted ex-POTUS.
Weissmann said Carroll could also seek an injunction against Trump.
