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E Jean Carroll’s Defamation Suit Against Trump Will Move Forward, Judge Rules

A judge ruled Thursday that E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against President Donald Trump can’t be postponed, causing the writer to celebrate online.

“IT’S ON!! See you in court, @realDonaldTrump!” she wrote Friday. Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle Magazine, is suing the president in state court on the grounds that when Trump denied her accusation of a sexual assault in the 1990s, he damaged her reputation. He remarked she wasn’t his “type.”

Carroll tweeted links to stories from the New York Post and New York Times about the ruling.

Also Read: White House Calls Trump Assault Accuser E Jean Carroll's New Defamation Suit a 'Fraud - Just Like the Author'

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Verna Saunders denied Trump’s request for a stay in the case, citing last month’s Supreme Court ruling the president is not immune from Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance’s efforts to subpoena his tax records from the past eight years.

“While the Vance Court’s decision permits the issuance of a criminal subpoena to a sitting President, its analysis and conclusions address the same issues and questions raised by defendant in this action,” she wrote in the decision, reviewed by TheWrap. A representative for the White House did not immediately return a request for comment.

When Carroll filed the defamation suit in Nov. 2019, the White House swiftly responded, describing it as “frivolous,” and calling both the story and its author as a “fraud.”

Also Read: NY Times Editor Says Paper 'Underplayed' E. Jean Carroll's Trump Attack Accusations

“Ms. Carroll is suing the President for defending himself against false allegations? I guess since the book did not make any money she’s trying to get paid another way,” then-press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement to TheWrap at the time. “The story she used to try and sell her trash book never happened, period. Her version of events is not even feasible if you’ve ever tried on clothing in a dressing room of a crowded department store. The lawsuit is frivolous and the story is a fraud – just like the author.”

In a pre-release excerpt of her book, published earlier in the year, Carroll accused Trump of sexual assault in a department store dressing room. He denied the attack.

Carroll wrote that after she ran into Trump in a department store, he asked her to help him pick out lingerie for someone, which Carroll agreed to do. She said Trump encouraged Carroll to try on a lace bodysuit, and that she joked that he should try it on instead, quipping, “It goes with your eyes.” She said Trump took her by the arm and said “Come on,” adding, “Let’s put this on.”

Carroll said that while still wearing a business suit, Trump opened his overcoat once they were in the dressing room, unzipped his pants and forced “his fingers around my private area.” Trump then “thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle.”

Read original story E Jean Carroll’s Defamation Suit Against Trump Will Move Forward, Judge Rules At TheWrap