A New York Appeals Court rejected President Donald Trump’s request to halt further legal proceedings in a defamation case filed by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on “The Apprentice,” the Washington Post reports.
Zervos alleges that Trump sexually harassed her; she she filed for a defamation lawsuit after he denied her accusations publicly. Recall, Trump called Zervos, and the other women who have accused him of sexual harassment, “liars.”
The report surmises that this legal setback could open Trump up to discovery in the case, lest he continue to attempt to legally delay proceedings. Trump’s attorney has tried to argue that when he called the women “liars,” he was expressing a political opinion. New York Supreme Court Justice Jennifer G. Schecter dismissed that claim in an opinion in March.
“No one is above the law,” Schecter wrote.
Trump appealed that opinion, which is the request the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court denied today. They described it as “a stay of the action pending hearing and determination of Trump’s appeal of Schecter’s order,” via the Post’s report.
Marc Kasowitz, an attorney for Trump, criticized the appeals court’s decision to the Post via email. According to the report:
Marc Kasowitz, an attorney for Trump, called the appeals court’s decision incorrect, citing an earlier case against President Bill Clinton that stemmed from a sexual harassment claim. Kasowitz wrote in an emailed statement that it was “completely and unjustifiably contrary to the stays the courts uniformly granted when deciding whether a lawsuit against President Clinton could proceed in federal court.”
“There is no valid reason in this case — in which plaintiff is seeking merely $3,000 in damages, and which plaintiff’s counsel has repeatedly insisted was brought for political purposes — for the Court not to grant the requested stay in order to take the time to first decide the threshold Constitutional issue that is at stake,” he continued.
Zervos’ attorney, Mariann Meier Wang, said in a statement she "look[s] forward to proving Ms. Zervos’s claim that [Donald Trump] lied when he maliciously attacked her for reporting his sexually abusive behavior."
Trump is also facing a separate defamation lawsuit by Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. The defamation lawsuit is a response to when Trump called her a "con job" after she released a sketch of a man who allegedly threatened her to be quiet about their alleged affair.
“A sketch years later about a nonexistent man,” Trump on Twitter. “A total con job, playing the Fake News Media for Fools (but they know it)!”
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