Donald Trump has asked a US judge to postpone the trial scheduled for April 25 on the charge that he defamed former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll by denying that he raped her.
The lawyers’ argument cites the recent media critical “deluge of coverage” of criminal charges against the former president in the case involving actress Stormy Daniels.
In a letter late Tuesday night to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, Trump’s attorneys said a four-week “cooling off” period until at least May 23 is necessary to ensure the right of the former US president to a fair trial in the Carroll case.
If there is no delay, “many, if not most, potential jurors will have the criminal allegations in mind when judging President Trump’s defense against Ms. Carroll,” Trump lawyers Joe Tacopina and Alina Habba said in the letter.
Potential jurors, they added, “will have the breathless coverage of President Trump’s alleged extramarital affair with Stormy Daniels still ringing in their ears if [o] trial proceed as scheduled.”
Trump is seeking another term in the White House and leading the Republican party’s primary polls.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, said she would respond to Trump’s request in a letter to the judge, to whom she is not related.
Carroll seeks damages for Trump’s denial – in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social media platform – that he raped her in late 1995 or early 1996 in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.
She is also suing Trump for assault over the alleged encounter, which Trump also said never took place.
Source: CNN Brasil
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