Trump denies Carroll’s claims after posting $91.6 million bond

Former President Donald Trump on Saturday stood by his 2019 assertion that author E. Jean Carroll made a “totally false accusation” in opposition to him, regardless of comparable claims leading to him dropping a defamation case in January. 

Campaigning at a rally in Rome, Georgia, Trump referenced the $91.6 million bond he posted on March 8, three days earlier than his deadline to pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll for defaming her in statements he made as president after denying her accusation that he’d raped her in a division retailer dressing room within the Nineteen Nineties. 

Carroll first got here ahead in 2019 with sexual assault claims in opposition to Trump earlier than one other civil trial in Could 2023, the place a New York jury discovered that the previous president sexually abused Carroll however did not rape her.

“I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story,” Trump stated, including that the judgment was, “based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn’t know, never heard of, I know nothing about her.”

The 77-year-old made comparable remarks in a June 22, 2019, assertion, MSNBC authorized correspondent Lisa Rubin posted on X on Saturday, together with a doc of Trump’s denial of understanding “who this woman is.”

“She wrote a book, she said things, and when I denied it, I said, ‘It’s so crazy, it’s false,’ I get sued for defamation,” Trump stated on Saturday earlier than referring to New York’s Adult Survivors Act, which lifted the state’s statute of limitations for one yr, permitting survivors of sexual assault to sue regardless of how way back the alleged abuse occurred.

“They changed the law that allowed women to go back, like unlimited … then she went back and she said, mid-90s maybe, I have no idea,” he stated.

On high of the $83.3 million in damages is a $5 million sexual abuse and defamation verdict that Carroll gained in opposition to Trump final yr. In February, the previous president was additionally ordered to pay $464 million in damages for a separate fraud case in opposition to Trump and high executives at his firm — he plans to enchantment all three verdicts.

Trump additionally shared his issues about Lewis Kaplan, the federal choose who denied his request to delay the defamation judgment, calling him a “Trump-deranged, angry man.”

Each Carroll’s authorized crew and the Trump marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to CNBC’s request for remark.