E. Jean Carroll Lawyer Tells Maddow Trump’s CNN Attacks ‘Definitely Actionable’ And ‘He’s Not Going To Get Away With It’

Roberta Kaplan, attorney for E. Jean Carroll, told Rachel Maddow that ex-President Donald Trump’s attacks on Carroll at a CNN town hall are “definite;y actionable” and he won’t “get away with it.”

Wednesday night’s CNN Town Hall has become as much a story because of Trump’s lies, attacks, and abuse of moderator Kaitlan Collins as it has for the hooting, cheering, and laughing crowd that encouraged him every step of the way.

In particular, they whooped it up as Trump spent almost four solid minutes mocking E. Jean Carroll — whom a jury says Trump sexually abused. The barrage prompted Carroll to say she may sue Trump again.

On Monday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show, the popular liberal host interviewed Carroll and Kaplan.

MADDOW: Let me ask about that question that I posited there about — I mean, it’s — you did force accountability, and then he did it again, the defamation, the calling you a liar.

The exact same things the jury held him liable for the day before, he did again the next day on national television. Is that just the way it has to be? Do you think that potentially could be actionable? If you were to file another suit, would it work the same way?

KAPLAN: So, it’s definitely actionable. And, here, the cruelty will make him less wealthy. He’s not going to get away with it another time.

They’re — it’s unprecedented for a person to have been held liable in defamation to keep doing the defamation. So there are not a lot of cases that we can look to for a playbook about how to do it. But, suffice to say, I have a lot of lawyers who are very busy looking into this, and we are weighing all of our options.

MADDOW: You also have another live case from the time when he was president and he was stating these same untrue things about you, defaming you in the same way.

That case is still working its way through the courts. What is your expectation in terms of what’s going to happen there?

KAPLAN: You’re going to see news from us on that case very, very soon, Rachel.

MADDOW: What counts us very soon?

KAPLAN: I don’t know how late the people work tonight. Two to three days max.

MADDOW: Wow. OK.

KAPLAN: But we’re going to — we’re fully pursuing that case. We got a nice — a very good decision from the D.C. Court of Appeals essentially affirming Judge Kaplan, that when Kap — when Trump said what he said about E. Jean in 2019, he was not acting as president.

We’re quite confident that that will be affirmed, and then we will be able to move forward with damages in that case. We don’t even need a finding of liability, because we already have it. And we will be able to find damages. And, there, the defamation damages are much higher, because that was the first statement he made.

And that’s what really destroyed her reputation as an advice columnist at “Elle” and to all her readers and people who trusted her and who looked up to her.

MADDOW: In terms of the timing here, after those statements that are still at issue in this live case, as you mentioned, you were let go from “Elle,” in terms of your job.

CARROLL: Yes. That’s right.

MADDOW: And you think that was related to his defamation?

CARROLL: Oh, I know it was related.

Watch above via MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show.