New York, Apr 13 (EFE).- The lawyers of former President Donald Trump asked again this Thursday to postpone the trial against him for defamation of the author E. Jean Carroll, this time on the grounds that a businessman donating to the Democratic Party has financed part of the complainant’s legal expenses.
In a letter to Judge Lewis Kaplan, lawyer Alina Habba said that Carroll has recently disclosed that his defense received funding from an NGO from Reid Hoffman – the founder of LinkedIn – something that is not clear that it affects the case but is expected to contribute to the allegations of political persecution of the former president.
The lawyer, who points out that Carroll assured that he does not receive external financing linked to politics, questions precisely whether the lawsuit is a “hoax” that seeks to “promote a political agenda” and expresses his “concern” about credibility, “bias and the reason of the complainant.
For this reason, it requests that the process, which is scheduled to start on April 25, be postponed for a month and return to the evidence-giving phase to “investigate” the matter, or alternatively that the jury be informed that there has been “adverse interference”. .
Just yesterday, another Trump lawyer asked that the trial be postponed on a different argument, that of the bad publicity derived from his indictment in a criminal case in Manhattan for the alleged irregular payments to a porn actress so that it would not harm his electoral candidacy.
Carroll’s defense, for its part, has opposed the two requests and has explained in a motion this Thursday that the author filed her lawsuit and that the financing of the employer’s legal expenses, which she considers “irrelevant”, was obtained by her team of lawyers later.
The judge has not responded to the requests.
Carroll, 79, accused Trump of rape in a book and magazine article in 2019, something he denied by publicly calling her a liar and making derogatory comments about her appearance, after which the author decided to launch a legal battle against him for defamation.
At the end of 2022, Carroll added to that lawsuit a new charge for injuries derived from the alleged rape as a legal period opened in New York to seek civil justice in cases related to sexual violence that until then had been prescribed.
