Former President Donald Trump on Saturday stood by his 2019 statement that writer E. Jean Carroll made a “totally false accusation” against him, despite similar claims resulting in him losing 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 before 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 department store dressing room in the 1990s.

Carroll first came forward in 2019 with sexual assault claims against Trump before another civil trial in May 2023, where a New York jury found that the former president sexually abused Carroll but didn’t rape her.

  • Thunderbird4@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    9 months ago

    Unfortunately, I think he knows what he’s doing. He’s counting on being able to make all his troubles go away if he’s elected and he knows that maintaining the premise that these are unfounded, politically-motivated attacks by the deep state is exactly what his devotees want to hear. He just has to keep them living in his version of reality long enough to take the throne.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      9 months ago

      He’s still a dumbass if he thinks that because state-level civil suits are not something presidents can make go away.