Trump did not attend author Carroll’s first trial and he did not have to appear at the second one either. With the tailwind of the primary election victory in Iowa, the ex-president is taking advantage of the attention.
The judge in the second libel trial against Donald Trump in New York has threatened to exclude the ex-president from the courtroom because of numerous disruptions.
“Mr. Trump has the right to be here. That right can be forfeited if he is disruptive – and what I have been told is part of that,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said in the Manhattan courtroom, according to consistent media reports. “And if he disregards the court’s instructions – Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to exclude you from the process, I understand that you would probably like that.”
Trump takes on the judge
Trump reportedly responded: “I would love that, I would love that.” Judge Kaplan then said, “I know that because you just can’t control yourself under these circumstances, you just can’t.” Previously, Trump repeatedly shook his head and made derogatory comments during US author E. Jean Carroll’s testimony against him. “This is fraud,” he reportedly said, for example.
In her statement, Carrol spoke, among other things, of the threats she receives from Trump supporters and the fear she lives with every day since she went public with her allegations against the former US president. After the court day concluded, Trump again claimed that he did not know Carrol at all before her allegations. He also attacked the judge, calling him a “radical Trump hater.”
Court dates as an election campaign event
This is Carroll’s second trial against Trump. At the end of the first, a New York jury found it proven in May that Trump had attacked Carroll in a luxury New York department store in 1996, sexually abused him and later slandered him. The jury then awarded the writer compensation of five million dollars (around 4.65 million euros).
Before the second trial began, a judge had ruled that Trump’s other comments were defamatory. The jury now only has to decide on the amount of compensation that the ex-president must pay to the woman. Carroll is asking for more than $10 million.
Trump is considered the Republicans’ most promising candidate in the November presidential election. However, he currently has to deal with the courts in numerous different cases. The 77-year-old often uses the court dates as a kind of election campaign event, which has already earned him criticism from several judges.
