Donald Trump appeared in a New York City courtroom on Friday to attend the appeal against the case that found him liable for sexually assaulting and defaming writer E Jean Carroll.
Trump and his lawyers sought to appeal against the verdict and erase the lofty $5m (£3.8m) fine that was delivered by a jury in May 2023.
The case is one of two in which he was accused by Ms Carroll of sexual assault and defamation – two juries unanimously found him liable in both civil cases.
The hearing in front of a federal appeals court on Friday resurfaced damaging allegations against Trump as he nears the final stretch of his US presidential campaign.
The former president denied that he had ever met Ms Carroll and repeated several claims about the case that had resulted in his previous defamation charges during a press conference at Trump Tower in New York shortly after Friday’s hearing.
“It’s an appeal of a ridiculous verdict of a woman I’ve never met,” he said.
“[The case] is so false. It’s a made up fabricated story by someone looking to promote a book,” Trump said, referring to a memoir Ms Carroll published, which included her allegations against the former president.
On Friday, Trump’s lawyers sought to appeal the judgement in the first case, arguing before the court that the allegations were “implausible” and that the evidence was “inflammatory” and “inadmissible”.
John Sauer, who is representing Trump, said that Ms Carroll’s team had presented no physical evidence or eye witnesses to support her accusations. He called the trial a “quintessential ‘he said she said’ case”.
Mr Sauer also sought to disqualify the testimony of two witnesses who claimed they were similarly assaulted by Trump.
Ms Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, opened her argument by drawing attention back to the heart of the case.
“Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996 in a dressing room in Bergdorf Goodman and then defamed her in 2022 by claiming that she was crazy and made the whole thing up,” she said.
Ms Kaplan also defended the testimony of the two witnesses and said they were key to establishing a pattern of behaviour that supported Ms Carroll’s allegations.
Trump blamed his lawyers for the jury’s verdict in this case, as they had advised him to avoid appearing in court. He has regularly attended court cases involving him since.
He attended and briefly testified at the second trial, which resulted in an additional $83m judgement against him.
The hearing is just one of multiple legal hurdles that Trump faces, and he complained about several of them during his press conference at Friday.
He awaits sentencing in a Manhattan criminal trial after he was convicted of falsifying business records to cover up hush-money payments to an adult film star.
The judge in that case, Juan Merchan, is expected to make his decision on Friday whether to delay the sentencing until after the election.
