Donald Trump appears at a rally. E. Jean Carroll enters federal court in Manhattan for the first day of trial against him. (Photos l-r: Emily Elconin/Getty Images; AP Photo/Brittainy Newman)
The death of Donald Trump’s mother-in-law will not delay the start of the former president’s defamation trial.
Former first lady Melania Trump announced on Tuesday that her mother, Amalija Knavs, had died. The news came as Donald Trump is facing down the start date of a trial to determine how much the former president owes writer E. Jean Carroll in defamation damages for his response to her allegation that he sexually assaulted her in a New York department store dressing room in the 1990s.
According to court filings, lawyers for Donald Trump made a late-afternoon request Friday to push back the start date so that Donald Trump could attend Knavs’ funeral in Florida.
“The application is DENIED,” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in an order issued that same day.
According to Kaplan’s order, which included extending his “condolences to Mr. and Mrs. Trump and the rest of Ms. Knavs’ family,” the former president’s attorneys made the ask in an email to court staff. In his response, the judge took note of the upcoming federal holiday to honor slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
“Today, at 3:59 pm, the start of the holiday weekend, Mr. Trump’s counsel emailed a member of the Court’s staff a request for a one-week postponement of the trial, long scheduled to being on January 16, 2024,” Kaplan wrote in his order. “The reason given was that Mr. Trump proposes to spend January 17 and 18 traveling to and attending the funeral, which the family has scheduled for January 18, 2024 in Florida.”
The judge’s order said that the trial “shall begin at 9:30 a.m. on January 16, 2024 as scheduled.”
Kaplan ordered both parties to file “their respective letters/emails concerning this request” to the public docket no later than Saturday. As of Saturday morning, the former president’s request did not appear on the docket.
Carroll’s response, however, was unequivocal: the trial must start as scheduled.
“As we informed Mr. Trump’s counsel earlier today, while we are very sorry for the Trumps’ loss, we oppose a complete adjournment of trial at this time,” said the letter, signed Friday by Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan, who said that any delay would be “severely prejudicial, particularly as Mr. Trump is near certain to assert scheduling conflicts” as his 2024 presidential campaign ramps up.
Attorney Kaplan said that she had offered a compromise: jury selection would on Tuesday, put Donald Trump’s testimony — “only if Mr. Trump in fact plans to testify,” she noted — could be delayed until the following Monday, after the funeral.
The former president’s lawyers said no — a response that Carroll’s lawyer said throws doubt on the entire postponement request.
“Mr. Trump’s rejection of our accommodation arguably puts into doubt the stated reason for his much broader adjournment request, as does the fact that after his mother-in-law’s passing he announced a campaign event in New Hampshire for January 16 — one of the trial days that Mr. Trump now demands be adjourned,” her letter says.
As Law&Crime has previously reported, Kaplan has already determined that Donald Trump did indeed defame Carroll when he said in 2022 that she lied about him sexually assaulting her. A civil jury found Donald Trump liable for sexual abuse, and awarded Carroll $5 million.
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