Author E. Jean Carroll enjoyed free press coverage of her latest book after she accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in a New York City department store in the mid 1990s.
Even with that coverage, her book bombed, just barely cracking the top 100 books on Amazon when it debuted before falling to just about 1,000 the next day.
Now Carroll is suing Trump for defamation in a lawsuit that will likely be thrown out. After Carroll came forward with her accusations – just days before her book dropped – Trump said he had “never met this person in my life.”
“I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section,” Trump said in his initial response to Carroll’s claims. “False accusations diminish the severity of real assault. All should condemn false accusations and any actual assault in the strongest possible terms. If anyone has information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms. Carroll or New York Magazine, please notify us as soon as possible.”
Carroll included a photo of herself with Trump at a party in 1987, which Trump dismissed because he takes a lot of photos with people he doesn’t know.
“Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda,” Trump also said. “It is a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.”
Further, Trump said Carroll was “totally lying” and “not my type.”
These statements, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, meet the burden for defamation.
“I don’t know what type a woman needs to be for him to decide to sexually assault someone, but that kind of gratuitous insult about her appearance is the kind of the thing that juries and judges look to,” Kaplan said in an interview with The Washington Post. “It looks like malice.”
The actual legal standard for defamation, especially when pertaining to public figures, is that the plaintiff must prove the following four elements, according to Cornell Law School: “1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault amounting to at least negligence; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.”
It seems impossible for Carroll to prove that Trump knowingly made a false statement, since there is no proof of their alleged encounter in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in either late 1995 or early 1996. Two friends of Carroll did come forward to say they were called after the alleged event, but that’s not enough to prove rape.
She would also be unable to prove that Trump’s statements caused her book to fail and not, say, her bizarre and changing statements regarding her accusation as she gained more and more media attention.
In the days after her initial accusation gained media attention, Carroll would go on to claim she had “not been raped,” and to give different reasons for why she didn’t come forward previously, including the bizarre claim that she won’t press charges now because “I would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection.”
In response to the lawsuit, White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham called Carroll’s lawsuit “frivolous.”
“Let me get this straight – Ms. Carroll is suing the President for defending himself against false allegations?” she asked, according to the Post. “I guess since the book did not make any money she’s trying to get paid another way. The story she used to try and sell her trash book never happened, period. Her version of events is not even feasible if you’ve ever tried on clothing in a dressing room of a crowded department store. The lawsuit is frivolous and the story is a fraud – just like the author.”