Simply days after Donald J. Trump posted a $91.6 million bond within the defamation case he misplaced not too long ago to the author E. Jean Carroll, her lawyer on Monday recommended she was contemplating submitting a 3rd defamation lawsuit in opposition to the previous president.
The lawyer raised the prospect of a brand new lawsuit after Mr. Trump in latest days repeatedly lashed out at Ms. Carroll, utilizing the identical type of disparaging language that led to the massive judgment in opposition to him in January.
“The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years,” Roberta A. Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, mentioned in an announcement Monday morning. “As we mentioned after the final jury verdict, we proceed to observe each assertion that Donald Trump makes about our shopper.”
In a separate court docket submitting, Ms. Kaplan informed the federal decide overseeing the case that she and Mr. Trump’s legal professionals had reached an settlement on the main points of his proposed $91.6 million bond.
The bond — supplied by Federal Insurance coverage Firm, an arm of the insurance coverage Large Chubb — would stop Ms. Carroll from gathering her multi-million-dollar judgment whereas Mr. Trump appeals the defamation verdict.
The decide, Lewis A. Kaplan, should nonetheless approve the proposed bond, which he may do as early as Monday.
The race to safe the bond earlier than Monday’s deadline got here as Mr. Trump was on the clock to acquire a bond for one more enormous judgment in a civil fraud case introduced by the New York legal professional common’s workplace. In that case, Mr. Trump should put up a virtually half-billion greenback bond by March 25, or the legal professional common’s workplace can start seizing his property whereas he appeals.
Mr. Trump lacks the money to provide you with each bonds directly, putting him in monetary peril at an already hectic time. He additionally faces 4 prison indictments — with the trial within the first case starting in Manhattan in two weeks — all whereas he’s on the cusp of turning into the Republican presidential nominee for the third time.
Though the previous president boasts of his billions, his internet price is derived largely from the worth of his actual property. He has greater than $350 million in money, a latest New York Occasions evaluation discovered, far in need of what he must acquire bonds in each instances.
An attraction bond is a promise from the corporate providing it to cowl a judgment if a defendant — on this case, Mr. Trump — loses an attraction and fails to pay. In alternate, Mr. Trump should pay the corporate a premium and pledge collateral, together with as a lot money as potential.
Mr. Trump has twice attacked Ms. Carroll in latest days, utilizing the type of language that has led to 2 defamation findings in opposition to him, most not too long ago a jury’s $83.3 million award in January.
On Saturday night at a rally in Rome, Ga., Mr. Trump complained bitterly concerning the bond he needed to put up, insisted Ms. Carroll’s accusations have been false and mentioned that she was “not a plausible particular person.”
Mr. Trump doubled down on these remarks Monday morning throughout a phone interview with CNBC, mocking Ms. Carroll as “Ms. Bergdorf Goodman,” a reference to the luxurious division retailer in Manhattan the place Mr. Trump was discovered liable by a civil jury final 12 months for sexually abusing her within the mid-Nineteen Nineties and defaming her years later.
Within the interview, Mr. Trump referred to as the choices in opposition to him “ridiculous,” with out elaboration.
“I acquired charged — I used to be given a false accusation and needed to put up a $91 million bond on a false accusation,” mentioned Mr. Trump, who was not in reality charged criminally within the case.
Within the Manhattan prison case that’s set to go to trial on March 25, Mr. Trump is accused of masking up a possible intercourse scandal throughout and after the 2016 presidential marketing campaign. That case, introduced by the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace, is the primary of Mr. Trump’s 4 prison indictments to maneuver to trial.
Together with his different prison instances mired within the appeals course of and different delays, it is perhaps the one one to go to trial earlier than Election Day.
The trial in Mr. Trump’s Washington prison case, which entails accusations that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election, was initially scheduled to start final week. But the Supreme Courtroom agreed to contemplate whether or not he’s immune from prosecution on costs involving official acts he took whereas president, throwing the trial into doubt.
On Monday, Mr. Trump’s legal professionals made a last-ditch effort to delay the Manhattan trial, arguing that the decide overseeing the case ought to wait till after the Supreme Courtroom has dominated on the immunity problem, which can not occur till June.
“President Trump is entitled to immunity from prosecution based mostly on proof of official acts that he undertook throughout his first time period in workplace,” his legal professionals wrote in a Monday court docket submitting.
The decide within the case, Juan M. Merchan, is unlikely to grant the request. At a latest listening to, he mentioned, “the difficulty of the state proceedings I don’t imagine is for the Supreme Courtroom.”
Mr. Trump’s request to delay the Manhattan trial was hardly his first try to play the timing of the instances in opposition to one another. On Monday, his legal professionals additionally requested the decide overseeing the federal prison case in Florida, the place he stands accused of mishandling categorised paperwork, to provide them an additional 10 days to file a spherical of court docket papers, citing their want to arrange for his trial in Manhattan.
