U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has given former President Donald Trump the go-ahead to testify in writer E. Jean Carroll’s impending defamation suit against him.
Kaplan’s order, issued Sunday, set Trump’s testimony for Monday, January 22, and followed a filing by Trump’s attorney Alina Habba, who argued that the former president can “still offer considerable testimony in his defense.”
Habba noted that an individual seeking punitive damages in a defamation case in New York must prove libelous statements were made out of hatred or ill will and argued that Trump should be allowed to testify as to whether hatred or ill will were behind his comments that Carroll claims are defamatory. Trump expressed his intention to testify at the trial earlier this month.
This suit against Trump is the second one filed on Carroll’s behalf for defamation. Last year, a jury granted Carroll $5 million in damages for sexual abuse and defamation in a separate lawsuit against him. Carroll brought legal action against Trump after he dismissed her sexual assault claim, which allegedly occurred in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s, and described her as a deceitful “wack job.”
Trump previously requested a one-week postponement of the trial, due to start Tuesday, to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral, which Kaplan denied. Kaplan also previously ordered that Trump is not allowed to argue that he never raped Carroll, a bizarre ruling given that Trump’s denial of the allegations is at the heart of Carroll’s defamation case against him.