Former President Donald Trump has not pulled any punches when it comes to his criticism of E. Jean Carroll, a writer who accused Trump of a rape incident in the 1990s that she alleges took place in a department store.
Carroll ultimately filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump last November, citing moments when he publicly called her story a "hoax and a lie." According to the Washington Examiner, a judge this week scolded the former president for recent remarks he made about Carroll's case.
Trump, this week, dropped a massive allegation against Carroll, claiming that a "big political donor" is behind the financing of the legal matter. He wrote another post criticizing her story not long after.
During the trial this week, Carroll's attorneys argued before the judge that Trump's remarks should be considered violations of the judge's previous rules on what Trump was allowed to say about her.
The former president made the brow-raising comment on Wednesday via Truth Social.
"The E. Jean Carroll case, Ms. Bergdorf Goodman, is a made up SCAM. Her lawyer is a political operative, financed by a big political donor that they said didn’t exist, only to get caught lying about that. Just look at her CNN interview before & after the commercial break - Like a different person. She said there was a dress, using the ol’ Monica Lewinsky “stuff”, then she didn’t want to produce it. The dress should be allowed to be part of the case," Trump wrote.
He added: "This is a fraudulent & false story--Witch Hunt!"
Trump continued in a follow-up post:
"They got caught lying! The Miss Bergdorf Goodman case is financed by a big political donor that they tried to hide. Does anybody believe that I would take a then almost 60 year old woman that I didn’t know, from the front door of a very crowded department store, (with me being very well known, to put it mildly!), into a tiny dressing room, and …. her. She didn’t scream? There are no witnesses? Nobody saw this? She never made a police complaint?" Trump wrote.
He continued: "If I was seen there with a woman-BIG PRESS. SCAM!"
"We're getting into an area in which your client may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability, and I think you know what I mean," the judge presiding over the case said to Trump's attorney.
The Examiner noted:
"These are out-of-court comments obviously," said defense attorney Joe Tacopina, but U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan interjected, saying, "What you're trying to do is to get away from a statement by your client, a public statement, that on the face of it seems entirely inappropriate."
The trial is expected to last 5 to 10 days, and Trump will reportedly not testify during the trial.
Only time will tell what the outcome of the trial is, but if it's less-than-favorable for Trump, Democrats and his Republican opponents will undoubtedly attempt to use it against him.
