Former US President Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower for Manhattan federal court for his second libel trial in New York on January 17, 2024.
Charlie Triballeau | AFP | Getty Images
A New York federal judge on Wednesday threatened to throw Donald Trump out of court for making “subversive” comments in the former president’s trial over sexual assault allegations by E. Gene Carroll.
Trump hit back at the judge and the threat: “I would love to.”
Judge Lewis Kaplan’s warning to Trump came after Carroll’s lawyer complained that he continued to hear comments to jurors — including, “That’s really a crook” — as Carroll testified for the first time in Trump’s presence.
Kaplan had earlier warned Trump to “keep his voice down.”
“Mr. Trump has a right to be here, that right can be forfeited and can be lost if he is disruptive and if he ignores court orders,” Kaplan said after the seven-man, two-woman jury excused itself for lunch. meal. in US District Court in Manhattan.
“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to think about disqualifying you from the trial, I understand that you are very eager for me to do that,” the judge said.
Trump raised his hands in the air and waved them in response.
“I would love it, I would love it,” Trump said.
Kaplan said at the time: “I know you would because you just can’t control yourself in this situation.”
Trump later blasted Kaplan in a post on his TruthSocial website.
“I feel obligated to be at every moment of this ridiculous trial because we have a vehement and hostile Clinton-appointed judge, Lewis Kaplan, who suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump wrote.
Former E. Magazine columnist Jean Carroll, right, arrives in Manhattan federal court for the second libel trial against former U.S. President and 2024 presidential candidate Donald Trump in New York on January 17, 2024.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
The judge began the second day of the trial hours earlier, snapping Trump’s lawyer, Alina Haba, when she repeated her plea that the trial be postponed so Trump could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.
“I said sit!” Kaplan told Hamba.
Hamba replied: “I don’t like being talked to [to] so… I won’t talk to you like that.”
Kaplan replied, “No. Sit down.”
Trump grumbled, “Bad guy,” after the tense exchange.
Trump’s ire continued when Carroll began testifying about the reputational and emotional damage she suffered from defamatory statements she made as president in 2019, and then when she denied her claim that he sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in mid of the 1990s.
“Having the President of the United States, one of the most powerful men on earth, call me a liar for three days and say it 26 times, I counted, ended the world I was living in and I was living in a new world,” Carroll testified.
Trump, 77, pounded on the defense table at one point, shook his head in anger and disbelief and made comments that were heard in the courtroom as Carroll answered questions from her attorney, Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to the judge.
After the morning recess, Carroll’s other attorney, Shawn Crowley, told Judge Kaplan that Trump was sitting at the defense table saying things out loud like; “Carol’s statements are false’ and ‘she now seems to have regained her memory’.
The judge admonished Trump after the break.
“Before we bring in the jury, I’m just going to ask Mr. Trump to take extra care to keep his voice down so the jury doesn’t hear it,” Kaplan told him.
In her testimony, Carol said: “I’m here because Donald Trump attacked me and when I wrote about it he lied and destroyed my reputation.”
“He lied last month, Sunday, yesterday and I want my reputation back,” said the former Elle magazine advice columnist.
“I’m 80 and I spent 50 years building my reputation. My column was very popular,” Carroll testified. “Yesterday I opened Twitter and it was saying, ‘Hey lady, you’re a fraud.’ “
Trump had claimed he never met Carroll, which was not true, that he had made up her rape claim to sell a book he was writing and that she was “not my type”.
E. Jean Carroll testifies before Judge Lewis Kaplan as former US President Donald Trump looks on, during the second civil trial where Carroll has accused Trump of raping her decades ago, in Manhattan Federal Court in New York, USA January 17, 2024 in this sketch room.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
“I’m not his type, it means I’m too ugly to attack,” Carroll said.
She testified that since Trump denied her allegations, the messages from his supporters to her have “never stopped.”
“I get them all the time, sometimes hundreds a day,” Carroll said. “The usual is that you’re a liar, you hurt victims, you’re ugly.”
This trial is the second to be held in connection with Carroll’s claim and Trump’s defamation of the author.
In this courtroom sketch, attorney Shawn Crowley opens up for her client E. Jean Carroll before Judge Lewis Kaplan in a second civil trial after Carroll accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago, in Manhattan Federal Court in New York in January. 16, 2024.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Last year, a Manhattan federal court ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million after finding him civilly liable for sexually assaulting her in the Bergdorf Goodman store attack in the 1990s and for defamation in statements he made about her late. 2022.
The court did not find that Trump had raped Carroll, as he had claimed in a lawsuit. But that finding depended on the fact that Carroll couldn’t tell whether he had penetrated her in the shop’s dressing room with his penis or his finger.
According to New York state law, rape includes penile penetration. But Kaplan noted in subsequent court orders that Carroll’s use of the term rape is consistent with how the public often defines it and with other states’ criminal codes.
Trump, who did not attend that trial, is appealing the verdict in that case.
The current lawsuit deals solely with monetary damages that Trump must pay to Carroll for defamatory statements he made about her in 2019 when he was president, and at different times later when he denied her claims.
Kaplan previously ruled that because of the first jury’s verdict, there was no longer a legal issue that Trump had defamed Carroll.
Carroll’s attorneys are seeking at least $10 million in damages in this case.
Haba unsuccessfully asked Kaplan last week to delay the trial so that Trump could attend the funeral of his wife Melania Trump’s mother, Amalia Knaves, in Florida on Thursday without having to miss the trial that day. .
Trump at a campaign event earlier this week blasted Kaplan for refusing to postpone the trial, calling him and other judges in cases involving him “animals.”
When the trial began Tuesday with jury selection, Habba complained about Kaplan’s refusal to delay the case until after the funeral.
She raised the complaint Wednesday morning, with Trump sitting next to her.
“My client and I would like to reiterate that she [Carroll] she can sit here every day and she didn’t have a death in her family and it’s insanely damaging,” Habba said.
“I am asking your honor to be kind enough to let my client be with his family and not miss the trial,” the lawyer said.
Kaplan again denied the request and abruptly told Haba to “sit down” when she insisted.
Trump, who faces criminal charges in four different courts, is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
On Monday, Trump won an overwhelming majority in the Republican caucus in Iowa. And he hopes to oust his remaining challengers, Florida Gov. Ron DeSandis and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, with another big win in the New Hampshire primary next week.
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