Trump’s lawyers fight to overturn civil finding of sexual abuse

Donald Trump’s lawyers are continuing their fight to overturn a verdict finding him liable for sexual abuse and slander.

Three judges of the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals are scheduled to hear arguments on Friday in Mr Trump’s appeal against a jury’s finding that he sexually assaulted the writer E Jean Carroll.

She said the Republican attacked her in a department store dressing room in 1996, the jury awarding Ms Carroll five million dollars (£3.8 million).

Preparations have been underway in a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan for several days for Mr Trump to attend the arguments.

The former president’s lawyers said the jury’s verdict should be thrown out because evidence was allowed at trial that should have been excluded and other evidence was excluded that should have been permitted.

Mr Trump, who has denied attacking Ms Carroll, did not attend the 2023 trial and has expressed regret he was not there.

The court is unlikely to issue a ruling before November’s presidential election.

The civil case has both political and financial implications for Mr Trump.

His Democratic rival for the presidency, Vice President Kamala Harris, has jabbed at the former president over the jury’s verdict, noting repeatedly that he had been found liable for sexual abuse.

In January, a second jury awarded Ms Carroll another 83.3 million dollars (£63.2 million) in damages for comments Mr Trump had made about her while he was president, finding they were defamatory.

That jury had been instructed by the judge that it had to accept the first jury’s finding that Mr Trump had sexually assaulted Ms Carroll.

The second trial was largely held to determine how badly she had been harmed by Mr Trump’s comments and how severely he should be punished.

Mr Trump, 78, testified for less than three minutes at the trial and was not permitted to refute conclusions reached by the May 2023 jury. He was animated in the courtroom throughout the two-week trial and jurors could hear him grumbling about the case.

The appeal of that trial’s outcome, which Mr Trump labelled “absolutely ridiculous!” immediately afterwards, will be heard by the appeals court at a later date.

Ms Carroll, 80, testified during both trials that her life as an Elle magazine columnist was spoiled by Mr Trump’s public comments, which she said ignited such hate against her that she received death threats and feared going outside the upstate New York cabin where she lives.

Lawyers for Mr Trump said in court papers that he deserves a new trial in part because the trial judge, Lewis A. Kaplan, permitted two other women to testify about similar acts of sex abuse they say  Mr Trump committed against them in the 1970s and 2005.

They also argued that Kaplan wrongly disallowed evidence that Ms Carroll lied during her deposition, and other evidence they say would reveal bias and motives to lie for Ms Carroll and other witnesses against Mr Trump.

The verdict, they wrote, was “unjust and erroneous,” resulting from “flawed and prejudicial evidentiary rulings.”

Mr Trump has insisted that Ms Carroll made up the story about being attacked to sell a new book. He has denied knowing her.