NEW YORK -- Donald Trump's lawyers said Tuesday the former president deserves a new trial and fresh chance to tell a jury why he berated writer E. Jean Carroll for her sex abuse claims against him after she revealed them five years ago.
The lawyers made the assertion as they renewed challenges to the $83.3 million awarded to Carroll in January by a Manhattan jury.
The award raised to $88.3 million what Trump owes Carroll after another jury last May awarded $5 million to the longtime advice columnist after concluding that Trump sexually abused her in spring 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury department store in midtown Manhattan and then defamed her with comments in October 2022.
Judge Lewis Kaplan had ordered the January jury to accept the findings of the earlier jury and only decide how much Trump owed Carroll for two statements he issued in 2019 after excerpts from Carroll's memoir were published by a magazine. Carroll testified that the comments ruined her career and left her fearing for her life after she received threats from strangers online.
Trump did not attend the May trial but was a regular fixture at this year's trial, shaking his head repeatedly and grumbling loudly enough from his seat at the defense table that a prosecutor complained that jurors could hear him.
Kaplan, who threatened to ban him from the courtroom, severely limited testimony from the Republican frontrunner for president. Trump's complaints about Carroll, 80, continued during the trial from the campaign trail, providing fresh exhibits for Carroll's lawyers to show jurors.
"This Court's erroneous decision to dramatically limit the scope of President Trump's testimony almost certainly influenced the jury's verdict, and thus a new trial is warranted," the lawyers wrote.
Trump's lawyers argued that Trump deserves to explain why he spoke as he did about Carroll.
The lawyers wrote that Trump had a range of compelling reasons to publicly deny Carroll's claims.
"Indeed, it is virtually unthinkable that President Trump's 'sole' and 'one and only' motive for making the challenged statements was that he simply wanted to harm Plaintiff -- as opposed to wanting to defend his reputation, protect his family, and defend his Presidency," they said.
In 2019, Trump derided Carroll, saying she was "totally lying" to sell a memoir and that he'd never met her, though a 1987 photo showed them and their then-spouses at a social event. He said the photo captured a moment when he was standing in a line. He also has called Carroll a "whack job" and said she wasn't "his type."
A lawyer for Carroll did not immediately return a message seeking comment.
LAWYERS OPPOSE GAG ORDER
Trump's lawyers warned Monday that a gag order sought by New York prosecutors ahead of his March 25 hush-money criminal trial would amount to unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on the former president's free speech rights.
Trump's lawyers urged Judge Juan Merchan to reject the request, which prosecutors said was prompted by his "long history of making public and inflammatory remarks" about people in his legal cases, as well as a spike in threats tied to his rhetoric.
The Manhattan district attorney's office asked last week for what it described as a "narrowly tailored" order to bar Trump from making or directing others to make public statements about potential witnesses and jurors, as well as statements meant to interfere with or harass the court's staff, prosecution team or their families.
Trump's lawyers, responding in court papers Monday, said such an order would hinder his ability to "respond to public attacks relating to this case" while foes including his former lawyer Michael Cohen are free to criticize him in TV appearances and on social media.
They suggested the prosecution's request is intended to muzzle Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, at a critical time in his campaign.
"President Trump's political opponents have, and will continue to, attack him based on this case," Trump's lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote in their 18-page response. "The voters have the right to listen to President Trump's unfettered responses to those attacks -- not just one side of that debate."
In a related filing Monday, Trump's lawyers said they agreed with prosecutors that the names of jurors should be kept from the public to protect their safety.
Merchan did not immediately rule. Barring a last-minute delay, the New York case will be the first of Trump's four criminal indictments to go to trial.
The Manhattan case centers on allegations that Trump falsified internal records kept by his company to hide the true nature of payments to Cohen after he paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 as part of an effort during Trump's 2016 presidential campaign to bury claims he'd had extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in jail time.
The proposed gag order would not bar Trump from commenting about Bragg, an elected Democrat. It mirrors portions of an order imposed on Trump in October in his separate Washington federal case, where he is charged with scheming to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss to Biden.
Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed in his New York civil fraud trial after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge's chief law clerk.
Information for this article was contributed by Larry Neumeister and Michael Sisak of The Associated Press.
FILE - E. Jean Carroll arrives at Manhattan federal court, May 9, 2023, in New York. Donald Trump's lawyers said Tuesday, March 5, 2024, that the ex-president deserves a new trial and a fresh chance to tell a jury why he berated writer Carroll for her sex abuse claims against him after she revealed them five years ago. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)