Trump Calls Out Judge's Past Ties to Lawyer Who Won Carroll Case – Bloomberg Law

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Asia Pacific+65 6212 1000
By Erik Larson
Donald Trump’s lawyer <-bsp-person state="{"_id":"0000018d-57d4-d52b-a3af-f7f697e10003","_type":"00000160-6f41-dae1-adf0-6ff519590003"}">Alina Habba is floating the idea of a new trial in New York writer <-bsp-person state="{"_id":"0000018d-57d4-d52b-a3af-f7f697e20000","_type":"00000160-6f41-dae1-adf0-6ff519590003"}">E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against the former president just three days after a New York jury awarded her $83.3 million in damages.
Habba on Monday sent a letter to US District Judge Lewis Kaplan expressing concerns about a New York Post article that claims the jurist had a close professional relationship with Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan — who isn’t related to the judge — when they were both attorneys at <-bsp-bb-link state="{"bbHref":"bbg://securities/1178L%20US%20Equity","_id":"0000018d-57d4-d52b-a3af-f7f697e60002","_type":"0000016b-944a-dc2b-ab6b-d57ba1cc0000"}">Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. The issue could also feature in an appeal of the damages award, she said.
“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 said in the letter.
Carroll went public in 2019 with a claim that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. She sued him for defamation when he issued statements from the White House calling her a liar and saying she wasn’t his “type.” The writer won a separate sexual-abuse trial against Trump last year. She was awarded $5 million in damages in that case.
Roberta Kaplan’s spokesman, Zak Sawyer, told the New York Post that the lawyer and the judge overlapped at the law firm for less two years in the 1990s. The lawyer didn’t immediately have a comment when reached by phone on Monday.
Habba complained frequently about what she described as unfair treatment of herself and her client during the trial that spanned two weeks and featured testimony from both Carroll and Trump.
“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,” Habba said in the letter. “Indeed, the rulings, tone, and demeanor of the bench raised significant concerns even before the New York Post’s investigative journalism unearthed these new facts.”
Roberta Kaplan, a progressive hero for a landmark Supreme Court victory for same-sex couples, also drew fire from Trump’s defense team for accepting funding for Carroll’s case from Reid Hoffman, the billionaire co-founder of LinkedIn and a Democratic Party donor.
Read More: <-bsp-bb-link state="{"bbDocId":"QT1YIQDWRGG1","_id":"0000018d-57d4-d52b-a3af-f7f698240001","_type":"0000016b-944a-dc2b-ab6b-d57ba1cc0000"}">Roberta Kaplan Builds Progressive Firm Suing Trump, Defending Wall Street

To contact the reporter on this story:
Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story:
<-bsp-person state="{"_id":"0000018d-57d4-d52b-a3af-f7f698290000","_type":"00000160-6f41-dae1-adf0-6ff519590003"}">Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou at megkolfopoul@bloomberg.net
Peter Blumberg, Steve Stroth
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