Judge sets January 2024 trial date for E. Jean Carroll’s original defamation case against Trump

(NEW YORK) — A judge has set an early 2024 trial date for writer E. Jean Carroll’s original 2019 defamation case against former President Donald Trump.

Judge Lewis Kaplan set a trial date of Jan. 15, 2024, for the case, in which Carroll claims then-President Trump defamed her in 2019 when he said she was “not my type” while denying that he raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

Trump has denied all accusations.

Last month, in a separate suit, a jury found Trump liable for battery and for defaming Carroll when he said in a 2022 Truth Social post that her allegations were “a Hoax and a lie” and saying again that “This woman is not my type!”

Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, added the charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations.

Jury members, who found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her, awarded Carroll a total of $5 million in the suit.

The Jan. 15 date puts the start of the upcoming trial one week before the scheduled date of the Iowa Republican caucuses, as Trump campaigns for a second term as president. However, Trump is not required to attend the civil trial, just as he did not attend the other trial last month.

Judge Kaplan ruled earlier this week that Carroll could add to the original suit allegedly defamatory statements Trump made last month after he was found liable for sexually assaulting her.

Trump has argued that the Justice Department should be substituted as the defendant in the original case because, at the time of his allegedly defamatory statements, he was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government.

Such a ruling would make the case go away, as the federal government cannot be sued for defamation.

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