Between the Iowa caucuses on Monday and the New Hampshire primary next Tuesday, former United States President Donald Trump is attending a defamation trial in New York this week over a lawsuit by writer and journalist E. Jean Carroll. A popular jury already declared that Trump abused her and sentenced him to pay five million dollars, but now it is being judged whether Trump defamed her after she reported his sexual assault. This Wednesday, in the second session of the trial, Trump did not stop making comments out loud during E. Jean Carroll's testimony and the judge threatened to expel him from the courtroom if she did not shut up. “I would love to,” Trump replied.
E. Jean Carroll, now 80 years old, has declared that Trump destroyed her reputation after she accused him of sexual abuse, but she did so amid constant interventions by Trump, who spoke to his lawyers, but in a tone audible to those present in the room. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has told the former president that his right to be present at the trial would be revoked if he continued to interrupt. After an initial warning, Carroll's lawyer said Trump could still be heard making comments to his lawyers, including “it's a witch hunt” and “it really is a scam,” according to quotes reported by the Associated Press. .
“Mr. Trump, I hope I don't have to consider excluding you from the trial,” Kaplan said in an exchange after the jury left for lunch, adding, “I understand you're probably looking forward to it.” “I would love to,” Trump replied, shrugging his shoulders while sitting at the defense table between his lawyers. “I know you would like it. He can’t control himself under these circumstances, it seems,” Kaplan responded. “You can't either,” Trump muttered.
The judge's warning came after Carroll's attorney, Shawn Crowley, complained for the second time that Trump could be heard “saying things out loud that are false.” Among his comments, Crowley said, were that the magazine's former columnist elle was lying about the attack and that he seemed to have “recovered his memory.” Crowley pointed out that if Carroll's lawyers could hear Trump from where they were sitting, nearly fifteen feet away from him, the jurors could have heard him too.
“I'm just going to ask Mr. Trump to be especially careful to lower his voice when he talks to the attorneys to make sure the jury doesn't hear him,” Kaplan said before jurors returned to the courtroom after the morning break. picks up the Associated Press. Earlier, without the jury in the room, Trump could be seen slamming his hand on the defense table and uttering the word “man,” when the judge again rejected his lawyer's request that the trial be suspended on Thursday. so she could attend her mother-in-law's funeral in Florida. The trial sessions are open to the press and the public, but are not broadcast on the internet or television.
Carroll told in his book What do we need men for? A humble proposal that Trump had raped her in the changing rooms of a luxury department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996. At the time, Carroll hosted the television show Ask E. Jean, inspired by his famous magazine column Elle, a successful sexual and sentimental office.
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Trump, who was president when the book was published, responded to the allegations by saying it could never have happened because Carroll “wasn't his type.” His comments led Carroll to file a defamation lawsuit against him, but that lawsuit became entangled in appellate courts in a legal dispute over whether Trump was protected from legal claims for comments made while he was president. Carroll had not been able to sue the former president directly for the rape in the years since the events, but last November he filed a new lawsuit against the former president in New York, taking advantage of the entry into force of a new state law, the Adult Survivors Act. that allowed victims of sexual violence to sue civilly for attacks that occurred decades ago.
Hence came the conviction for sexual abuse last May. The jury determined that there was no rape, but there was sexual abuse, and set the amount of compensation at five million dollars.
In his statement this Wednesday, Carroll complained about the damage to his reputation that Trump's words have caused. “I have paid everything that can be paid,” she said, according to words reported by the Associated Press. He said Trump's vitriol toward her has not stopped, pointing to multiple social media messages he has posted about her in recent days. “She lied last month. She lied on Sunday. She lied yesterday. And I'm here to get my reputation back,” Carroll said.
Carroll has said she has received a barrage of death threats, prompting her to buy bullets for a gun she inherited from her father, install an electronic fence and warn her neighbors of the threats, among other measures. She also went with an escort to the trial this week and last May and said she had often thought about hiring security more often to accompany her. “Why doesn't she do it?” her lawyer asked. “I can't afford it,” Carroll responded.
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