Trump lawyers request new trial in E Jean Carroll case that saw ex-president fined $83.3m

Attorneys for former president Donald Trump are arguing that he should be granted a new trial in the case brought against him by E Jean Carroll.

Ms Carroll won her case against Mr Trump in January, with a jury ruling he had defamed her after she came forward in 2019 with allegations that he had raped her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s.

Mr Trump denied the accusations, and claimed he had «never met that person in my life.” In an interview with The Hill, he said “She’s not my type,” suggesting he didn’t find her attractive enough for the assault to have taken place.

After a two-week civil trial in January, the nine-person jury ruled in Ms Carroll’s favour and ordered Mr Trump to pay her $83.3m in damages.

In a new court filing on Tuesday, attorneys for Mr Trump pushed for a new trial, arguing that the trial’s verdict had been “infected” by errors.

According to the filing, Judge Lewis Kaplan did not allow the jury to consider comments from Mr Trump on his “state of mind” when he defamed Ms Carroll, which “restrict[ed] the scope” of his testimony. In the stricken testimony cited by his attorneys, Mr Trump had said he “just wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly, the presidency.”

“This Court’s erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump’s testimony almost certainly influenced the jury’s verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted,” the defence attorneys wrote.

The attorneys also argued the federal judge gave “erroneous jury instruction on the definition of common-law malice.”

This wasn’t Mr Trump’s first time calling for a redo. In February, Judge Kaplan denied his motion for a mistrial, saying the trial had been fair and retrying it would be “entirely