ROME, Ga. — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday accused author E. Jean Carroll of making “false accusations” against him, even though similar comments led to a major court judgment against him. He repeated his claim that he had done so.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Georgia representing President Trump's general election pivot to prevent a second defeat to Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump reiterated a number of grievances, including: said it included Mr. Carroll's civil court victory.
“I just posted bail for $91 million, and the $91 million was a complete fabrication,” he said, referring to the bail he posted this week as he appeals a defamation judgment against him.
“Ninety-one million is based on false accusations made about me by a woman I knew nothing about, never knew anything about, never heard of,” he continued.
“She wrote a book, she said something,” Trump told a raucous crowd in Rome, about 110 miles northeast of Atlanta. “And when I denied it, I said, 'That's so crazy. That's a lie.' I'm going to sue you for defamation. It goes from there.”
At issue for Trump is that he raped Carroll during an encounter in the dressing room of a New York department store in the 1990s, then defamed her account by calling her a “hoax” and “the work of a con man.” This is Mr. Carroll's argument.
In May, a jury found Trump not responsible for the allegations. However, after the former president admitted responsibility for sexual abuse and defamation of Carroll, he awarded her $5 million in damages.
A separate lawsuit focused on similar comments President Trump made about Carroll while in office, concluding that he defamed her when he questioned her story. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said that because the abuse was true, the lawsuit would determine damages, which were later determined to be $83.3 million.
Trump is appealing both cases.
The ruling did not seem to deter him from returning to denying her account. On Saturday, Trump said he was equally aware that Carroll was “not a person to be trusted” and called Kaplan a “terrible person, a terrible judge” and “very corrupt.” .
Trump blamed his defamation woes on “Democrat operatives” and called the city where he and his father have bought, sold, traded and developed real estate projects for the better part of a century a crooked metropolis.
“New York is a very corrupt place,” Trump said.
As of early Sunday morning, Carroll did not appear to have responded to Trump's recent denial of his story.
