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Donald Trump has lost a legal bid to countersue journalist E Jean Carroll who has accused him of raping her nearly 20 years ago.
In a scathing decision released on Friday, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said Mr Trump’s continuing attempts to delay the 2019 case were “futile” and in “bad faith”.
“The defendant’s litigation tactics, whatever their intent, have delayed the case to an extent that readily could have been far less,” Judge Kaplan wrote.
“Granting leave to amend without considering the futility of the proposed amendment needlessly would make a regrettable situation worse by opening new avenues for significant further delay.”
Letting Mr Trump countersue “would make a regrettable situation worse,” the judge added.
E. Jean Carroll leaving a Manhattan courthouse in February after a hearing in her defamation case against Mr Trump
(Associated Press)
Ms Carroll, 78, has alleged that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. Mr Trump has denied the allegations.
In November 2019, Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump for defamation over statements he made in response to the allegations.
Ms Carroll’s contention is that statements made by Mr Trump in response to the allegations caused her “to suffer reputational, emotional, and professional harm”.
In a statement released after the ruling, Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan noted that Judge Kaplan said this case “could have been tried and decided – one way or the other – long ago”.
“My client E. Jean Carroll and I could not agree more,” Ms Kaplan said.
A lawyer for Mr Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ms Carroll originally filed her lawsuit in state court, but the case moved to federal court in September 2020, after the Department of Justice (DOJ) intervened to substitute Mr Trump’s private legal team with government lawyers.
Last year, the DOJ indicated it would continue to represent Mr Trump, despite President Joe Biden previously criticising the move to fund his litigation.
At a hearing in February, Ms Kaplan told Judge Kaplan they were requesting a sample of the former president’s DNA.
Mr Trump’s deposition in the case was finally unsealed on Friday 13 January 2023, and the former president repeatedly attacked Ms Carroll during his deposition.
The former president described writer E Jean Carroll as a “nut job” and rejected claims that he assaulted her tin he dressing room of a luxury department store in New York City in the mid 1990s.
“She said that I did something to her that never took place,” Mr Trump said in testimony taken under oath that was made public on Friday.
Mr Trump also used the deposition to brag about the success of his Truth Social platform.
The one-term president boasted about the number of users on his “hot” social media site he set up after being kicked off Twitter and Facebook in the newly unsealed deposition.
Mr Trump was asked by lawyers if he had around 4 million followers on Truth Social.
“I don’t know the number. I know Truth Social is doing very well. I think it was number one ahead of TikTok, number one ahead of Twitter, number one ahead of Instagram and everyone else for the last number of days. I just noticed that. Somebody put it on my desk. They have the ratings, and they said Truth Social is hot,” Mr Trump replied, the record shows.
Mr Trump also threatened to sue the lawyer representing Ms Carroll.
“There’s something wrong with her (Carroll) in my opinion,” he said during the October 2022 deposition, according to the transcript.
He continued: “But it’s a false accusation. Never happened, never would happen. And I posted and I will continue to post until such time as – and then I will sue her after this is over, and that’s the thing I really look forward to doing.
“And I’ll sue you too because this is – how many cases do you have? Many, many cases, and I know the statements that were made – that you made. ‘Keep Trump busy because this is the way you defeat him, to keep him busy with litigation’. So I will be suing you, also, but I’ll be suing her very strongly as soon as this case ends.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan said in a decision denying a motion to throw out the case that Mr Trump’s argument was “absurd”.
