After posting a $91.6 million bond on Friday, former president Donald Trump continues to do the thing that resulted in the judgment against him: defame columnist E. Jean Carroll. Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan responds to remarks Trump made at a Georgia rally and during an interview with CNBC by noting that the statute of limitations has not expired. Trump’s attorneys file a motion to delay the March 25 start date of his hush money trial, saying the judge should allow for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in first on the question of whether presidential immunity protects him from prosecution. Here are the latest legal developments involving the Republican presidential frontrunner.

E. Jean Carroll defamation

Trump continues to call E. Jean Carroll a liar — and Carroll’s lawyer is listening

Key players: columnist E. Jean Carroll, Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Judge Lewis Kaplan

• Days after posting a nearly $92 million bond for defaming Carroll by denying he met or sexually assaulted her in a department store changing room in 1996, Trump continued to accuse Carroll of lying, the New York Daily News reported.

• “I just posted a $91 million bond, $91 million on a fake story, totally made-up story,” Trump said at a rally on Saturday in Rome, Ga., “based on false accusations made about me by a woman that I knew nothing about, didn’t know, never heard of, I know nothing about her.”

• On Monday, during an interview on CNBC, Trump continued to cast doubt on Carroll, calling her “Ms. Bergdorf Goodman” and describing her as “a person I’d never met.”

• In May a jury found that Trump had not only known Carroll, but had sexually assaulted and later defamed her, and awarded her $5 million in damages.

• In January, a second jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million, in part due to Trump’s repeated denials and attacks.

• Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, warned that Trump’s latest remarks could result in yet another lawsuit.

• “The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years. As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll,” Kaplan said in a statement.

• On Friday, Trump posted notice that he would appeal the second jury’s $88.3 million judgment with the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Why it matters: Trump is betting that his appeal will be successful in knocking down the amount a jury has ordered to pay Carroll, but two juries have already ruled against him, finding there was ample evidence to disprove his claims he “never met” her.

New York hush money

Trump asks court to delay start of hush money case until Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity

Key players: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, adult film actress Stormy Daniels, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, Judge Juan Merchan, U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein

• On Monday, Trump’s lawyers filed a motion with Merchan to delay the March 25 start of his criminal trial on charges he violated New York state tax and campaign finance laws when he made payments to Daniels and McDougal in 2016 to hide extramarital affairs, Reuters reported.

• The grounds for the delay, they wrote, was to give the Supreme Court time to decide whether presidential immunity protects Trump from being prosecuted.

• “Without immunity from criminal prosecution based on official acts, the President’s political opponents will seek to influence and control his or her decisions via de facto extortion,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.

• The problem with that argument, however, was that Trump was not president when he arranged the payments to the two women.

• Trump has asked the Supreme Court to find that presidential immunity protects him from prosecution in the Jan. 6 election interference case because, he claims, challenging the election results was part of his official duties as president.

• Last year, however, Hallerstein denied a similar line of argument used by Trump’s lawyers when they unsuccessfully tried to have the hush money case moved from state to federal court.

• “Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts,” the judge wrote.

Why it matters: Trump is hoping to delay the hush money case as long as he can, and seems to be testing the limits of the protections that presidential immunity might offer him.

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