Trump dealt another blow in E. Jean Carroll defamation case

An appeals court dealt a blow to former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, denying a motion from his legal team to put writer E. Jean Carroll's latest suit against him on hold in a newly released opinion.

However, the judges left a tiny window open for the former president, ordering an expedited hearing on his claims of presidential immunity that a lower court judge had ruled was baseless.

He's asked that the trial be put on hold while an appeal about the immunity ruling was made.

"Although we do not grant a stay pending appeal, it would be in the interest of the parties, as confirmed during oral argument, for the Court to resolve the issue of absolute presidential immunity as presented in the two appeals expeditiously," said the order.

"Moreover, the parties' extensive briefing thus far makes clear that they have already substantially developed their arguments on the merits of that and related issues."

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Carroll, who says that Trump raped her in a department store in the late 1990s, sued the former president for defamation and for sexual battery after he repeatedly denied the incident and claimed she was making it up for professional gain. In a separate case filed by the same accuser, a jury found Trump liable for defamation, as well as for sexual abuse, earlier this year.

However, Trump continued to push many of the same false claims Carroll sued him over in the first place, including leading a pro-Trump crowd at a CNN town hall in New Hampshire in laughter aimed at her.

Carroll has subsequently sued Trump again. The former president responded with a counterclaim against her, but a judge found Carroll's criticisms of Trump were "substantially true" and threw out the counterclaim.