It looks like Donald Trump may be heading back to court before the polls open in November, and he’ll once again be going head-to-head with author E. Jean Carroll.
A federal appeals court has scheduled oral arguments for September 6, as part of Trump’s appeal of the May 2023 verdict in his first trial against Carroll. At the time, a jury unanimously found Trump liable for defamation and sexual abuse, and ordered him to pay her $5 million.
Lawyers for Carroll had filed a motion to a federal appeals court in May this year to expedite Trump’s appeal, arguing that Trump would use his campaign as an excuse not to sit in court.
“Donald J. Trump has demonstrated a clear pattern of dilatory, obstructionist, and bad faith conduct throughout these proceedings,” the motion said. “With the pendency of the general presidential election campaign (which will intensify in the fall), not to mention several active state and federal criminal proceedings, Mr. Trump may well contend that any oral argument scheduled for later in 2024 must be deferred until early 2025—at which point he could be preparing for an inauguration or awaiting another criminal trial.”
While Trump will likely try to worm his way out of the very proceedings he requested, it seems like some people are very much looking forward to it.
“I AM READY!!!!” Carroll wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
In January, Trump paid a hefty bond and filed to appeal the verdict in his other case against Carroll, after a jury ordered that he fork out a whopping $83 million to the author for repeatedly defaming her.
If oral arguments proceed as planned, they will take place less than two weeks before the former president is scheduled to attend a sentencing hearing for his 34-count criminal conviction in his hush-money case.
However, the judge in that case, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, suggested that Trump’s sentencing may not come to pass due to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to grant Trump presidential immunity for “official acts,” which may have potentially rendered some evidence inadmissible.
