E. Jean Carrol attorney says "all options" are on the table after Trump posts "human scum" rant

The former president tried to ridicule the writer’s claims even after she was awarded $91 million for defamation

Published May 28, 2024 10:51AM (EDT)

E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)
E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Donald Trump has again denied rape and defamation claims against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, posting a holiday rant that garnered the attention of her lawyer, CNBC reported.

In a Memorial Day post on his website, Truth Social, the former president spent little time dwelling on the holiday itself. His “Happy Memorial Day to All” greeting was swiftly followed by attacks against federal Judge Lewis Kaplan and the woman he was previously found guilty of defaming.

Trump extended his holiday greeting to “the Human Scum that is working so hard to destroy our Once Great Country, & to the Radical Left, Trump Hating Federal Judge in New York that presided over, get this, TWO separate trials, that awarded a woman, who I never met before (a quick handshake at a celebrity event, 25 years ago, doesn’t count!), 91 MILLION DOLLARS for “DEFAMATION.” 

Judge Kaplan presided over the May 2023 case in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing the writer in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. In January 2024, the judge also presided over another civil defamation case, brought after the former president continued attaking Carroll; the writer was awarded $83.3 million in damages in that case, a verdict that Trump is appealing. 

Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, responded to Trump’s post: “We have said several times since the last jury verdict in January that all options were on the table. And that remains true today — all options are on the table.”

Kaplan had previously told CNBC that lawyers "continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll.”

The Biden campaign did not miss the opportunity to add its two cents, either, noting on X: “Trump posts Memorial Day message with zero mention of fallen American service members, instead calling those who don’t support him ‘Human Scum.’”


MORE FROM Nandika Chatterjee