US judiciary
Libel trial: Judge threatens Trump with expulsion
The sketch shows Donald Trump next to his lawyer in a courtroom in New York. photo
© Elizabeth Williams/AP/dpa
Trump did not attend author Carroll’s first trial and he did not have to appear at the second one either. But the ex-president takes advantage of the attention – and also takes on the judge.
The judge in the second libel trial against Donald Trump in New York threatened the ex-president with exclusion 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 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.
US author wants more than ten million dollars
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.
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.