E. Jean Carroll's evidence begins in Trump defamation damages trial – USA TODAY
NEW YORK — A federal judge threatened to bounce former President Donald Trump from the courtroom Wednesday after he ignored warnings to keep silent during testimony by writer E. Jean Carroll during a civil defamation trial.
“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” Judge Lewis Kaplan told the 2024 Republican presidential frontrunner after Carroll’s lawyers complained that the jury could hear him disparaging the former advice columnist’s testimony. “I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that.”
“I would love it,” Trump growled back from the defense table.
“You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently,” Judge Kaplan replied.
“You can’t either,” said Trump.
Carroll, 80, claims Trump, 77, raped her in a department store dressing room almost 30 years ago. The trial in lower Manhattan will determine what, if any, damages Trump might owe Carroll after he publicly denied her allegations in 2019 when he was president. In May, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and for defaming her.
On Wednesday, Carroll told the jury that Trump’s attacks in June 2019, after she first went public with her allegations, led to an avalanche of abuse and threats. She said she physically ducked after reading the first emailed threat. “I thought I was gonna get shot,” Carroll said.
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Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) led her through some of the threats she had received. One said the “penalty for lying about rape should be execution by hanging or firing squad,” while another said “stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger and send yourself to HELL.”
“I spent 50 years building a reputation,” Carroll said. “Now I’m known as a liar and wack job.”
A lawyer for Carroll complained to the judge at a morning break from testimony and again during a a lunch break that she could hear Trump making statements that shouldn’t be heard by the jury. The attorney, Shawn Crowley, said she overheard Trump say “It is a witch hunt. It really is a con job.” Some of the jurors, Crowley added, were sitting closer to Trump than she was.
Trump’s comments from the defense table, and Crowley’s protests, set the stage for his bitter exchange with Judge Kaplan.
Carroll’s team began the morning by offering testimony and evidence to support their case that Trump ruined her reputation and caused her to live in fear through his denials of sexually assaulting her.
Even as Trump made a courtroom appearance during jury selection on Tuesday, he continued to attack Carroll on his Truth Social platform as a woman with a “fake story” who is “seeking fame, fortune, and publicity.”
The ongoing attacks could come back to haunt him. Crowley raised them during opening statements Tuesday, saying there were 22 just that day as of her team’s last count and jurors should think about how much money it will take to make the “self-proclaimed billionaire” stop.
“It’s time to show him no one is above the law,” Crowley said.
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Trump’s team, for their part, characterized Carroll as an attention-seeker who herself is to blame for the negative attention and threats she’s received.
“She wants President Trump to pay for the risks she took,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba told the jurors Tuesday. “Her career has prospered and she has been thrust back into the limelight like she always wanted.”
The case ties back to two lengthy denials Trump made while president in 2019 after Carroll came forward publicly with allegations that he raped her in a department store dressing room. Trump called her allegations “a disgrace” and said “people should pay dearly for such false accusations.”
Crowley mirrored Trump’s own language when she spoke to the jury on Tuesday, saying it is now his turn to “pay dearly for what he’s done.”
In May, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll, though it didn’t find him liable for rape. He was ordered to pay a combined $5 million for the abuse and for a defamatory statement he made in 2022, when he called Carroll a “con job.”
More:‘We are not the liars. He is’: Trump #MeToo accuser reacts to E. Jean Carroll verdict
Judge Kaplan has ruled Trump isn’t allowed to argue to the current jurors that he didn’t assault Carroll in light of that May verdict. Instead, the trial is restricted to determining what if any damages he must pay for harm caused by the 2019 statements and to deter Trump from ongoing defamatory attacks against Carroll.
Trump has stated he plans to attend the trial and “explain I don’t know who the hell she is.” Kaplan denied Trump’s request for a delay to the trial in light of funeral arrangements for Melania Trump’s mother, but did say Trump could have until Monday to testify even if other aspects of the trial conclude this week.
After sitting in the courtroom during jury selection Tuesday, Trump traveled to New Hampshire for a campaign rally.