‘The Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards Plaintiff’s counsel,’ his lawyer said.
Former President Donald Trump said he is interviewing attorneys to appeal a jury’s ruling stipulating that he must pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million.
In a post on Truth Social, the former president wrote that he is in the process of “interviewing various law firms to represent me in an appeal” of the Carroll ruling, which he described as “one of the most ridiculous and unfair Witch Hunts our Country has ever seen.”
“Any lawyer who takes a TRUMP CASE is either ‘CRAZY,’ or a TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT,” President Trump wrote on Jan. 30. “I will make my decision soon.”
He was represented during the trial by attorney Alina Habba, who represents him in the separate civil fraud trial in New York and other cases. After the verdict was issued in the Carroll case, Ms. Habba filed a letter to the court alleging that Judge Lewis Kaplan was biased.
She cited a New York Post report that he previously worked at the same firm as Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan.
“The underlying defamation case tried last year, and the damages trial completed last week, were both litigations in which there were many clashes between Your Honor and defense counsel,” Ms. Habba wrote.
“We believe, and will argue on appeal, that the Court was overtly hostile towards defense counsel and President Trump, and displayed preferential treatment towards Plaintiff’s counsel.”
In a court filing of her own on Jan. 30, Roberta Kaplan denied allegations that she was mentored by the judge, as Ms. Habba had alleged. She said they never interacted and suggested that she could sanction Ms. Habba.
In response, the Trump lawyer responded by saying she was asking a question about whether there was any truth to the report.
“The length of our overlap at Paul, Weiss was less than two years,” Ms. Kaplan wrote in a response on Jan. 30, adding that “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.”
Ms. Habba responded in a letter, saying: “The purpose of the letter was simply to inquire as to whether there is any merit to a recently published New York Post story which reported on the alleged existence of such a relationship.”
