Judge Rejects Trump's “Lame Effort” at Dismissal of E. Jean Carroll's Defamation Case

Author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll celebrated Thursday after a New York judge rejected President Donald Trump’s attempt to have Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against him dismissed.

The case, involving statements Trump made last year after Carroll publicly accused him of raping her in the 1990s, will now move into the discovery phase.

Carroll described Trump’s attempt to dismiss the suit as a “lame effort.” The president had argued that he was not in New York or a resident of the state when he made the statements, and so the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.

Trump, state Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan said in her ruling, provided “not even a tweet, much less an affidavit” to argue his point—a reference to the president’s penchant for using Twitter to make official statements. Trump’s lawyer only provided the court with a statement saying the president has lived in the White House for three years.

Supporters of Carroll joined her in applauding the decision.

“It’s not easy to get your day in court, and nobody deserves one more than she, for surviving a close encounter of the worst kind with him,” tweeted radio host Grant Stern.

In her memoir “What Do We Need Men For?” and in New York magazine last summer, Carroll alleged that in the 1990s, Trump threw her up against a wall in a department store dressing room and raped her.

The president responded by claiming he didn’t know Carroll—despite the fact that a photo of the two of them together was readily available—and saying the columnist was “lying” and was “not his type.”

Carroll’s case is one of two pending defamation cases against Trump from women who have accused the president of assault. Trump has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by at least 24 women, leading some critics to argue that the credible allegations should long ago have been considered grounds for the president’s impeachment.