Judge rejects Trump's bid to dismiss E. Jean Carroll's sexual assault lawsuit

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Former President Trumpand writer E. Jean Carroll. Photos: Joe Raedle and Alec Tabak for New York Daily News/Tribune News Service via Getty Images

A federal judge on Friday tossed out former President Trump's motion to dismiss writer E. Jean Carroll's sexual assault lawsuit against him.

The big picture: Carroll brought the lawsuit, which alleges that Trump raped her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, after New York enacted the Adult Survivors Act (ASA) last year. The new law allows adult survivors of sexual violence to sue over attacks that occurred decades ago.

  • Trump has denied her accusation. In his motion to dismiss the case, he argued that the ASA violates due process.
  • The former president has also attempted to dismiss a separate defamation suit Carroll brought against him by arguing the libel claim is legally insufficient.

Driving the news: District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in his 28-page opinion that Trump's legal arguments are "without merit."

  • The New York state legislature "long has recognized the problem created by what it characterized as a 'culture of silence' and the existence of comparatively short limitations periods for bringing civil and criminal actions for sexual assaults and other sexual offenses."
  • "Thus, the creation of a revival period for otherwise time-barred claims based on sexual assaults against adults was aimed at what New York reasonably and permissibly regarded as an injustice," said Kaplan, who was appointed by President Clinton.
  • "To suggest that the ASA violates the State Due Process Clause because the Legislature supposedly did not describe that injustice to the defendant’s entire satisfaction in a particular paragraph of a particular type of legislative document — itself a dubious premise — is absurd."

Worth noting: Trump answered questions under oath in October after repeatedly attempting to delay the defamation case's proceedings.

  • Carroll is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for psychological harm, dignity loss, pain and suffering, and reputation damage.

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