E. Jean Carroll’s defamation trial against Trump set for Jan. 2024

A federal judge on Thursday set E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against former President Donald Trump for early next year.

In a brief scheduling order, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan said the civil trial will commence on Jan. 15.

Kaplan on Tuesday had granted Carroll’s motion to file an amended complaint in the still-pending case against the former president seeking new damages of at least $10 million, based in part on comments Trump made during a CNN town hall last month.

Lawyers for Carroll, a writer, highlighted a string of comments Trump made at the CNN event, including that he had never met or seen Carroll and that her allegations were fabricated.

“I never met this woman. I never saw this woman,” Trump, who launched his 2024 presidential bid in November, said during the CNN appearance, while also referring to Carroll’s claims as “fake” and “made up,” her lawyers said.

Trump “doubled down on his prior defamatory statements” during the town hall, Carroll’s attorneys wrote in the motion seeking the amended complaint.

Trump’s team had sought to block the delayed defamation suit.

On Tuesday, Trump attorney Alina Habba said her team didn’t think Carroll should have been allowed to amend the defamation complaint: “We maintain that she should not be permitted to retroactively change her legal theory, at the eleventh hour, to avoid the consequences of an adverse finding against her.”

The pending defamation case dates back to 2019, when Carroll publicly accused the then-president of raping her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store near his Fifth Avenue home in New York City in 1995 or 1996.

She had sued Trump on allegations that he defamed her when he was president by calling her claims a “hoax” and a “con job.”

A jury in New York found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defamation last month in a separate case she filed against him. But that jury did not find that the evidence showed Trump raped her.

The defamation case is one in a series of upcoming trials involving Trump.

The New York attorney general’s $250 million lawsuit accusing Trump of attempting to inflate his personal net worth to attract favorable loan agreements is slated to go to trial in October. Trump has called that investigation a “witch hunt.”

In March, the Manhattan district attorney’s hush money case, which charges that Trump falsified business records related to his alleged role in making hush-money payments to two women before the 2016 election, is scheduled to go trial in March. Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case.

Dareh Gregorian contributed.