![Judge rejects Trump's attempt to countersue accuser E. Jean Carroll, calling it a delay tactic](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/190716072234-e-jean-carroll-new-day-071619-super-tease.jpg)
Judge rejects Trump's attempt to countersue accuser E. Jean Carroll, calling it a delay tactic
CNN
A federal judge on Friday denied Donald Trump's request to countersue magazine writer E. Jean Carroll for violating New York's law against frivolous defamation lawsuits, criticizing the former President's legal argument as "futile" and a delay tactic.
Trump had asked the judge for permission to use the state's anti-SLAPP law as a defense to the defamation claims and to countersue Carroll and seek attorneys' fees, if successful.
In a 25-page opinion, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied Trump's motion, calling it "futile." He agreed with Carroll's argument that Trump's effort was "at least in part for a dilatory purpose and thus at least in part in bad faith."
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In speeches, interviews, exchanges with reporters and posts on social media, the president filled his public statements not only with exaggerations but outright fabrications. As he did during his first presidency, Trump made false claims with a frequency and variety unmatched by any other elected official in Washington.