Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump’s legal defense team is reportedly looking at potentially asking for a new trial in the infamous E. Jean Carroll case on the heels of a starling discovery.
According to a report from The Gateway Pundit, the basis for this could rest upon the alleged connection between presiding Judge Lewis Kaplan and attorney Roberta Kaplan, who is representing Carroll.
The allegation from some is that Judge Kaplan mentored Roberta Kaplan (who is reportedly not related to the judge) three decades ago, but that this connection was not disclosed in court.
Americans are likely aware that a jury ordered President Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll a massive sum of $83.3 million in damages last week at the close of a highly controversial defamation trial, per RSBN.
Carroll later appeared on MSNBC with Rachel Maddow and openly declared that she was going to “go shopping” with the money. She told Maddow, “We’re going to get COMPLETELY new wardrobes, new shoes…Rachel, what do you want? [A] penthouse?”
One of her lawyers, Shawn Crowley, added, “That’s a joke.”
Journalist and media personality Megyn Kelly observed, “This is the kind of clip that could win Trump the election.”
As for Trump, his attorney, Alina Habba, fired off a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan on Monday, highlighting what she believed was a concerning link between Carroll’s attorney and himself.
She wrote, “If Your Honor truly worked with Ms. Kaplan in any capacity—especially if there was a mentor/mentee relationship—that fact should have been disclosed before any case involving these parties was permitted to proceed forward.”
Habba further argued that the court was “overly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards the Plaintiff’s counsel.”
Her letter also claimed that one of E. Jean Carroll’s lead counsels once worked as a law clerk for Judge Kaplan, “and we were previously advised that Your Honor co-officiated her wedding.” That lead counsel was allegedly Shawn Crowley.
Business Insider reported that Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, had stated in a letter that her work had overlapped with Judge Kaplan at a national law firm between 1992 and 1994, but she denied having a mentorship relationship with him.
She wrote, “During that relatively brief period more than thirty years ago, I do remember the Paul, Weiss partners with whom I worked and none of them are Your Honor.”
Kaplan’s letter also threatened to seek sanctions against Habba if she pursued the issue.
1 comment