President Donald Trump’s legal team is urging the Supreme Court to overturn a civil lawsuit verdict finding he sexually abused writer E. Jean Carroll.
The filing asserts that Carroll’s claims are a “politically motivated hoax,” the Associated Press reports. The filing goes on to accuse Judge Lewis Kaplan of twisting federal evidence to prop up Carroll’s “implausible, unsubstantiated assertions.”
“President Trump has clearly and consistently denied that this supposed incident ever occurred,” Trump attorney Justin Smith and his co-counsel wrote. “No physical or DNA evidence corroborates Carroll’s story. There were no eyewitnesses, no video evidence, and no police report or investigation.”
“Instead, Carroll waited more than 20 years to falsely accuse Donald Trump, who she politically opposes, until after he became the 45th president, when she could maximize political injury to him and profit for herself,” the filing adds. “Notably, Carroll’s allegations are a story that precisely matches the plotline from an episode of one of admittedly her favorite TV shows, ‘Law & Order.’”
In September, a federal appeals court in New York upheld a civil judgment directing President Trump to pay $83.3 million to Carroll.
“We conclude that Trump has failed to identify any grounds that would warrant reconsidering our prior holding on presidential immunity. We also conclude that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s damages awards are fair and reasonable,” the judges wrote, adding, “We hold that the district court did not err in any of the challenged rulings and that the jury’s duly rendered damages awards were reasonable in light of the extraordinary and egregious facts of this case.”
