Trump Takes A Break From Screaming Online To Demand Delay Of Defamation Case Because Of All The Publicity

“WORLD WAR III!” the former president screeched into the ether on Easter Sunday.

He followed it up Monday with another social media screed against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The Democrat Party of DISINFORMATION is working full time saying that the reason D.A. Bragg’s “charge” is so weak is that it is going to help me get the Republican Nomination, and I’m the one they want to run against. Actually, it’s weak because they have NOTHING (but HATE!), and I’m the last person they want to run against. They said the same thing in 2016, and how did that work out? The Disinformation Democrats only do it to demean me, but I’ve had a lot worse things said. MAGA!

And on Tuesday evening, he sat down with Fox News’s Tucker Carlson to rant at length about many things, including his indictment in New York.

Then on Wednesday, the former president’s lawyers demanded a postponement of his April 25 civil defamation suit by E. Jean Carroll citing the “adverse publicity” around the criminal indictment.

“President Trump can only receive a fair trial in a calmer media environment than the one created by the New York County District Attorney,” his attorneys Joseph Tacopina and Alina Habba wrote in a letter motion to Judge Lewis Kaplan. “A short postponement of the trial will allow the recent surge in media coverage to subside and increase the likelihood that President Trump receives a fair trial.”

The lawyers argue that it would be an “abuse of discretion” for the court to force their client, who recently insisted that “I did NOTHING wrong in the ‘Horseface’ case” and warned of “death and destruction” should he actually be charged, to face a jury “the breathless coverage of President Trump’s alleged extra-marital affair with Stormy Daniels still ringing in their ears.”

“To be sure, President Trump is a persistent subject of media coverage,” they go on. “But the present situation is unique because, as stated above, the recent coverage pertains to alleged sexual misconduct, the same issue at the heart of this litigation.”

What do defamation and sexual battery tort claims have to do with 34 felony counts of making a false business record? And exactly which part of Trump’s anatomy was he using to sign those “retainer” checks to Michael Cohen?

Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who first sued Trump almost four years ago, was not impressed with the effort to put off the trial. In her own letter, she notes that “Trump is exceptionally ill-suited to complain about fairness when he has instigated (and sought to benefit from) so much of the very coverage about which he now complains.”

“There is a fundamental difference between publicity about an alleged consensual affair in 2006 and trial on an alleged sexual assault in 1996,” she wrote, adding that “there is no reason to believe that is true—and substantial reason to believe it is mistaken” to suggest that media coverage of Trump’s legal woes will abate by the last week of May.

The letter mentions the two pending federal grand jury investigations of Trump, as well as the Fulton County District Attorney’s investigation in Georgia, where a grand jury is expected to be seated in May to consider the recommendations of the special purpose grand jury investigating the campaign of election interference.

“The fact that Trump is the subject of an unusually large number of criminal investigations cannot possibly mean that Carroll is barred from going forward in her unrelated civil action,” she wrote, insisting that any bias from the criminal indictment(s) could be handled during voir dire.

Then this morning, Trump’s team came forward with another reason to delay the trial, alleging that Carroll’s lawyers had deliberately obscured the source of her litigation funding. According to Habba, Carroll testified in deposition back in October that no one else was paying her legal fees. But on Monday, her attorneys disclosed that a non-profit bankrolled by LinkedIn chair Reid Hoffman, a major Democratic donor, is footing the bill.

“This revelation raises significant questions as to Plaintiff’s credibility, as well as her motive for commencing and/or continuing the instant action,” Trump claims. “It also strikes at the heart of one of the key aspects of Plaintiff’s defamation claim – whether the instant action is a ‘hoax’ that was commenced and/or continued to advance a political agenda.”

Judge Kaplan, who previously said this trial would begin on April 25 “come hell or high water,” has not yet ruled on either motion. And meanwhile, the April 20 deadline in his order for the parties to disclose whether they’ll be present in court for the trial is fast approaching.

Will Donald Trump show his face in the courthouse and face his accuser?

He will not. But a girl can dream.

Carroll v. Trump I [Docket via Court Listener]
Carroll v. Trump II [Docket via Court Listener]


Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

 

 


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