A US judge has dismissed Donald Trump’s defamation counterclaim against the writer E Jean Carroll, handing a fresh legal defeat to the former president as he seeks another White House term.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan said Carroll’s statements, made on CNN the day after she won a $US5 million (A7.6 million) jury verdict against Mr Trump for defamation and sexual abuse, were at least “substantially true,” and Mr Trump failed to show she made them with actual malice.

Alina Habba, a lawyer for Mr Trump, said: “We strongly disagree with the flawed decision and will be filing an appeal shortly.”

Mr Trump, 77, filed his counterclaim in a second defamation lawsuit by Carroll, 79, who is seeking at least $US10 million ($15 million).

A trial is scheduled for January 15, 2024.

Mr Trump is the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

He has also pleaded not guilty to criminal charges in three separate indictments, including over his effort to reverse his 2020 election loss and his role in events leading to the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

Mr Trump sued Ms Carroll after the former Elle magazine columnist said “oh yes, he did; oh yes, he did” when asked on CNN about the jury’s finding that he had not raped her.

He also objected to Ms Carroll recounting how she had told his lawyer “he did it and you know it” soon after the verdict was read.

Judge Kaplan had previously found convincing proof that Mr Trump “deliberately and forcibly” penetrated Ms Carroll’s vagina with his fingers, causing immediate pain and long-lasting emotional and psychological harm.

The verdict reflected that “Mr Trump ‘raped’ her, albeit digitally rather than with his penis,” Judge Kaplan wrote on Monday. “Thus, it establishes against him the substantial truth of Ms Carroll’s ‘rape’ accusations.”

Judge Kaplan also struck some of Mr Trump’s affirmative defences, including that he had “absolute presidential immunity” and that Ms Carroll was ineligible for punitive damages.

Roberta Kaplan, who represents Ms Carroll and is not related to the judge, said she was pleased with Monday’s decision, which means the January trial “shouldn’t take very long to complete.”

Both lawsuits stemmed from Mr Trump’s denials that he forced himself upon and raped Ms Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

Ms Carroll is suing over Mr Trump’s comments in June 2019 that he had not known her, that she was not his “type,” and that she lied to boost sales of her memoir.

The $US5 million ($A7.6 million) verdict stemmed from a similar denial in an October 2022 social media post, where Mr Trump branded the incident a “Hoax and a lie” and a “complete Scam.”

Ms Carroll amended her lawsuit after Mr Trump disparaged her as a “whack job” in a CNN town hall following the verdict.