Former President Donald Trump’s legal team plans to appeal the $83.3 million decision in the defamation lawsuit from E. Jean Carroll due to an alleged “insane” conflict of interest with the presiding judge.
As Breitbart News reported, a jury awarded “an additional $83.3 million to former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says former President Donald Trump damaged her reputation by calling her a liar after she accused him of sexual assault.”
The report continued, “A seven-man, two-woman jury rendered the verdict on Friday in a trial that Trump frequently attended. Trump abruptly left the courtroom during Carroll’s lawyer’s closing arguments, only to later return.
Trump took to his Truth Social website after the ruling to strongly express his dissatisfaction and declare his intention to appeal.
Carroll, a former journalist, filed a lawsuit after making allegations in 2019 that Trump had sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a department store in the mid-1990s. Trump has consistently denied these allegations.
“Absolutely ridiculous! I fully disagree with both verdicts, and will be appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party. Our Legal System is out of control, and being used as a Political Weapon. They have taken away all First Amendment Rights. THIS IS NOT AMERICA!” Trump wrote on his social media website.
Trump’s legal team announced their intention to appeal the ruling over the weekend.
Attorney Alina Habba argued that they were not aware of the prior mentorship between Judge Lewis Kaplan and Roberta Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer, during the 1990s. Although their last names are similar, the two individuals are not related.
“It was never disclosed. It’s insane and so incestuous,” Habba said, alleging that the past relationship had never been disclosed.
According to the Daily Mail, the conflict-of-interest allegations erupted from an “anonymous former Weiss partner, who reportedly claimed Roberta Kaplan—a junior associate—made an extra effort to stand out to the managing partners.”
The former partner claimed the judge served as Roberta Kaplan’s mentor.
“Before becoming a founding partner at law firm Kaplan, Keckler & Fink in 2016, Roberta Kaplan worked alongside the judge at Paul, Weiss Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison in Manhattan,” noted the Mail. “According to her LinkedIn, she started working at the firm in 1992, where Judge Kaplan was a partner until President Bill Clinton appointed him to the federal bench in 1994.”
Zak Sawyer, a representative for Roberta Kaplan, stated that she and the judge had a limited professional relationship.
“They overlapped for less than two years in the early 1990s at a large law firm when he was a senior partner and she was a junior associate, and she never worked for him,” he said.
After the ruling came down on Friday, Habba spoke to the media from outside the courthouse and delivered an impassioned speech.
“There was no proof, and I couldn’t prove that she didn’t bring in the dress, there was no DNA, there was no expert, my experts were denied, two of them, two of them were denied to come in. They didn’t bring — let me bring up that Reid Hoffman funded Ms. Kaplan. And you know what we got in there? My witness, who was her friend, said that she is a drug addict and the drug addict is herself,” Habba said.
Test your skills with this Quiz!
“That friend, I found out in there, was paid for by Ms. Kaplan’s firm and that is disgusting. That is a violation of everything I stand for, and that is why I stand with Trump. And that is why so many Americans are so proud that he is running again and so excited to run to the ballot box. But don’t get it twisted. We are seeing a violation of our justice system. Ladies and gentlemen, you are not allowed to be stripped of every defense that you have,” Habba added.
WATCH:
