- Donald Trump had just a few minutes on the witness stand in E. Jean Carroll’s ongoing defamation trial towards him.
- The choose advised the jury to ignore a lot of his testimony and blocked him from answering a number of questions.
- In courtroom, Trump interrupted the proceedings by persevering with to assert he by no means met Carroll.
Not often earlier than have so many individuals — journalists, authorized pundits, and the general public — waited so lengthy to listen to Donald Trump say so little.
The Republican frontrunner was given a brand new platform on Thursday, the microphone of the witness stand within the Manhattan federal courtroom of the second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial.
However the federal choose within the case ran such a good ship that Trump was allowed, on his direct testimony, to provide transient solutions to only 4 questions.
He was solely on the stand for about three minutes, together with a minute or so of cross-examination and re-direct testimony.
After Trump took the witness stand, raised his proper hand, and swore to inform the reality, his lawyer, Alina Habba, requested him if he stood by his statements in a October 19, 2022 deposition.
Sections of the deposition, the place Trump denied raping Carroll and mentioned she was “not my sort,” had been performed for the jury earlier on Thursday.
“100%, sure,” Trump answered, his voice a mixture of confidence and umbrage.
His reply to Habba’s second query — which requested why, throughout his deposition, he denied Carroll’s allegations — was, “Sure. She mentioned one thing I thought-about a false accusation—”
All the things after the “Sure” was laid low with US District Decide Lewis Kaplan, who’s presiding over this trial and who additionally oversaw the 2023 rape-defamation trial that resulted in a $5 million verdict.
Habba’s third and closing direct query — asking if he supposed or ever advised anybody to “harm” Carroll again in June of 2019, when he first denied he’d raped her and mentioned “she’s not my sort” — was equally lower quick by the choose. Carroll’s attorneys have argued Trump ought to pay her thousands and thousands of {dollars} in damages after his supporters ruined her repute by calling her a liar.
“No,” Trump answered. “I simply needed to defend myself and my household and, frankly, the presidency.”
Once more, the whole lot Trump mentioned after “No” was zapped from the file.
As an alternative of doing so on the stand, Trump was left to air private grievances, insist on his innocence, and rail about how “This isn’t America” exterior the listening to of the jury.
And he did loads of that.
3 times — twice earlier than his testimony, and as soon as afterward — Trump griped loudly about getting a uncooked deal from Carroll and the courtroom system. However the jurors by no means heard it.
Shortly after the lunch break, Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, famous to the choose that she’d simply heard Trump audibly muttering from behind her that he deliberate to violate the choose’s constraints on his testimony and proceed to assert that he did not sexually assault Carroll.
“Mr. Trump mentioned underneath his breath that he’ll nonetheless deny it,” Kaplan, the lawyer, mentioned.
“If I’ll, your honor—” Trump’s lead lawyer, Alina Habba, started, although the choose shortly advised her she “could not.”
Then, minutes earlier than his testimony, and with the jury nonetheless not within the courtroom, Trump piped up once more.
“I by no means met the lady!” Trump insisted out loud, from his seat on the protection desk.
“I have no idea who the lady is!” he complained.
“Mr. Trump,” the choose interrupted. “Preserve your voice down.”
Roberta Kaplan, who will not be associated to the choose, was solely allowed to ask Trump a restricted variety of questions in her cross-examination as properly.
Trump confirmed that he did not attend Carroll’s trial towards him final spring, the place the jury unanimously agreed that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll within the mid-Nineteen Nineties. They discovered him responsible for sexual abuse and defamation and awarded her $5 million.
Trump shook his head and pouted as Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, questioned him.
The defamation swimsuit was first filed in 2019, however took years to get to trial over authorized questions of whether or not Trump might be held responsible for statements he made whereas he was president.
By the point it made it to a jury, the trial over the second lawsuit — which included defamation claims for feedback Trump made after he left the presidency — had already been accomplished.
The choose made a collection of rulings based mostly on a authorized doctrine known as “collateral estoppel,” which principally meant that the jury’s findings in final 12 months’s trial had been binding on this 12 months’s trial. Decide Kaplan concluded that Trump was responsible for defaming Carroll when he known as her a liar in 2019 and that the second trial could be solely on damages.
The restricted scope of the trial additionally meant that Trump and his attorneys had been forbidden from persevering with to argue in courtroom that Carroll had lied. Regardless, Trump has continued to carry press conferences and submit on social media that he “by no means met” Carroll and “had no thought who this girl is” though they had been photographed collectively within the Eighties and he was discovered responsible for sexually abusing her in a federal courtroom case.
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Earlier than Trump took the stand Monday afternoon, the choose defined to Trump that the sooner jury verdict couldn’t be re-litigated, noting the “very well-established authorized precept on this nation that you don’t get a do-over.”
The choose requested Habba a collection of questions to make sure Trump’s testimony wouldn’t veer exterior the bounds of his rulings.
“I need to hear the whole lot he’s going to say,” the choose advised her.
Habba supplied to make clear the few questions she deliberate to ask Trump — however admitted she did not have a “crystal ball.”
“I’m not testifying for my consumer, your honor,” she mentioned.
Carroll’s attorneys expressed concern that Trump would trample previous the scope of Habba’s questions anyway. The choose famous that Carroll, when she was on the witness stand, was forbidden from answering questions in regards to the sexual assault as properly.
“Mr. Trump cannot supply proof or argument to sexual assault,” Kaplan mentioned. “Carroll did not testify that both.”
Trump gave a parting shot on his approach out
After Trump’s transient testimony, the protection rested. The choose instructed the jury that closing arguments would begin and end Friday morning, and that they will start deliberations on Friday afternoon.
The jurors left the courtroom. So did the choose.
However on his approach out — strolling the size of the courtroom, trailed by a contingent of Secret Service brokers and US Marshalls — Trump could not resist a parting shot.
“It is not America,” Trump griped as he walked, his eyes scanning the courtroom viewers, which was stuffed principally with information reporters.
“Not America,” he added as he reached the door. “This isn’t America.”
As Carroll and Kaplan then left the courtroom, Enterprise Insider requested them if they’d any response to Trump’s parting comment. They didn’t.
