Trump Lawyers Promise To Start Playing Nice In E. Jean Carroll Defamation Cases

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Trump's legal team is taking a decidedly less confrontational approach with Joe Tacopina in the driver's seat of the second E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

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The first case has dragged on for three years, during which the former president ducked process, claimed absolute immunity, insisted he was beyond the jurisdiction of a New York court, and attempted to substitute the government as defendant on the theory that he was just doing his presidential duty when he implied that Carroll was too ugly for him to have sexually assaulted in a department store dressing room years ago. That theory is pending before the DC Superior Court, after the Second Circuit punted the issue as a question of DC employment law.

But Tacopina previously mocked Trump's position, telling CNBC in 2020, scoffing that "Trump calling an alleged victim of rape ... a liar is not an act in his official capacity."

"Although ad hominem attacks on members of the regular public may be a regular occurrence in the Oval Office these days, Article II of the Constitution does not include within the functions of the presidency the role of Chief Mudslinger," he added.

This may explain why Tacopina, whose former clients include rapper Meek Mill, baseball player Alex Rodriguez, and Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancee Kimberly Guilfoyle, has not entered an appearance in the original case (Carroll I).

But in October of 2022, Trump repeated his supposedly official statements calling Carroll a liar and not his "type," rather undercutting the theory that he was just president-ing when he said them the first time in 2019. Carroll then filed a second suit on Thanksgiving with another defamation charge and a claim for battery under New York's newly enacted Adult Survivors Act (Carroll II). Judge Kaplan has not decided whether the two cases will be joined, but Tacopina, who entered an appearance in Carroll II, assured the court that the days of sniping and dilatory filings were over.

"If you say start tomorrow, I'll be ready," he told the court, while requesting that all deadlines be delayed six weeks to allow his medical expert to examine Carroll in light of the battery claim.

Attorney Alina Habba -- whose antics just earned a million dollars in sanctions from a Florida federal judge and thoroughly antagonized Judge Kaplan and New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron -- was also on hand to make the maximalist argument that the entire case should be stayed pending an interlocutory appeal to the Second Circuit.

In the event, the court was unpersuaded by either argument, bumping the trial date by just a week from April 17th to the 25th.

Meanwhile in Carroll I, a producer for The Rachel Maddow Show requested that the court unseal portions of two documents from January which had been redacted because they referred to then-sealed deposition excerpts. In those excerpts, Trump repeatedly mistook a photo of Carroll for his former wife Marla Maples and had to be corrected by Habba, as well as making it clear that he'd attacked Carroll, not in his official capacity, but because "when people accuse me of something, I think I have a right to be insulting."

Because those transcript excerpts had already been unsealed, the court agreed to the producer's request.

Here's a bit of the newly visible portion, in which Carroll's lawyers mock the argument that Trump was expressing the official White House position when he claimed that Carroll had a history of making false claims and was collaborating with shady Democrats in a hoax to take him down:

Trump never read (or even saw) Carroll's article or book before he set out to destroy her. He did not undertake any investigation whatsoever into Carroll, her background, or her claims, nor did he ask anyone in the White House to do so. He had no idea what Carroll even looked like--and, when first presented with a photo of himself with Carroll during the deposition, twice mistook Carroll for his second wife, at least until his lawyer corrected him. At the time he made the defamatory statements at issue, Trump had no knowledge of Carroll's financial arrangements, her publication contract, her book sales, her political leanings, her connections to political actors, or her reasons for speaking up--in other words, he knew nothing (and made no effort to learn anything) about the defamatory attacks he aimed at Carroll, and had no recollection of involving White House staff or aides in those attacks (or seeking their advice). He does not recall any specific basis to have believed when he defamed her that Carroll had falsely accused any other particular man of sexual assault. He did not engage in any notable way with White House aides in making his defamatory statements, and there was no effort within the White House to investigate Carroll's claim.

On its face, this conduct did not constitute the performance of any presidential function[.]

Well, when you put it like that ...

Carroll v. Trump I [Docket via Court Listener]
Carroll v. Trump II [Docket via Court Listener]
Donald Trump's new lawyer vows no more delay tactics as E. Jean Carroll rape case heads for trial [Law & Crime]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.