Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba demanded a mistrial in the defamation case against E. Jean Carroll after her cross-examination descended into chaos on Wednesday.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has regularly bashed the lawyer in court, quickly denied her request after columnist Carroll admitted she deleted emails after accusing Trump of rape.
The former president, 77, shook his head discordantly and stared at the ground as Habba continued to question Carroll on the tense second day of the $10 million defamation trial.
Trump challenged Judge Kaplan to throw him out of the courtroom for complaining too loudly that the case was a “scam” and a “witch hunt” in one of many tense arguments in the Manhattan courtroom.
During her emotional testimony, Carroll choked up as she told the jury she had received so many death threats that she bought bullets for a gun she kept next to her bed.
After leaving court, Trump said on Truth Social that it was a “great” day of trial as Carroll admitted to removing “tremendous amounts of evidence, under subpoena, which is a crime.”
“On that basis alone, both this lawsuit and the first lawsuit should be dismissed immediately!” he added.
He also condemned Judge Kaplan again for refusing to postpone the trial so he could attend his mother-in-law Amalija Knav’s funeral in Florida on Thursday.
Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba demanded a mistrial in the defamation case against E. Jean Carroll, saying her cross-examination descended into chaos
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has regularly put down the lawyer (center of the stand) in the courtroom, quickly denied her request after columnist Carroll admitted that she deleted emails after suing Trump.
At a news conference at his Wall Street building, he again denied knowing Carroll and called her allegations a “made-up story.”
“It’s a totally rigged deal. This whole thing is rigged. I had no idea who she was,” he told reporters before flying to a campaign rally, even in New Hampshire.
A New York jury found last year that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s.
The new trial will decide how much he will pay in damages for comments he made while president – including: “This woman is not my type!”
Habba asked Carroll why she said she was in a “cocoon of love and support” shortly after the publication of the 2019 New York Magazine interview in which she accused Trump of rape.
Earlier, Carroll told the jury she received a barrage of vile messages and death threats after Trump said she was lying.
“Haven’t you suffered too much emotional damage?” Habba asked.
Carroll responded, “No, that’s not fair to say. I experienced great support, which I found very encouraging and a terrible, threatening, terrible flood of phlegm. Both things happened at the same time’.
Carroll was asked about a text she sent to her friend Lisa Birnbach the day after the article came out, and Trump denied it.
Trump again blasted Judge Kaplan for refusing to delay the trial so he could attend his mother-in-law Amalija Knav’s funeral in Florida on Thursday.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, who repeatedly slammed the lawyer in court, quickly denied her request and told the jury to “ignore everything she said.”
Before the tense exchange, Carroll told the jury in the $10 million defamation trial that Trump’s “lies” had led to so many death threats that she bought bullets for a gun she held near her head.
Trump (far left) and Carroll (second from left) are pictured with their respective spouses John Johnson and Marla Maples in 1987
Carroll said, “I’m as good as wine!” I slept until noon!’ Carroll confirmed she sent the text.
When asked why she didn’t call police about the threats, Carroll said “it wouldn’t do any good.”
Carroll told the jury that Trump’s “lies” had led to so many death threats that she bought bullets for a gun she held near her head.
The jury was shown some of the deluge of vile messages she received, including some emails threatening her life.
Carroll choked up, saying that “many, many” commented on her appearance, with the overall message being that she was “too ugly to live on.”
“DAMN YOU ARE SO UGLY THAT A KOMODO DRAGON WON’T TOUCH YOU WITH A THING FOOT POST…GO BACK TO YOUR CAVE,” it read.
Another photo showed Carroll’s face next to an alien and the words, “Both tell fictional made-up stories.”
Carroll’s dramatic testimony began after Trump left Trump Tower early Wednesday morning with mysterious red cuts on his hands.
She told the jury that Trump “shattered” her reputation by repeatedly “lying” about the attack and implying she was “too ugly to attack” by claiming she was not his type.
The judge then admonished Trump for muttering loudly during her testimony that Carroll had “suddenly regained her memory” from behind the defense table.
Carroll, pictured in the photo that arrived in Cout on Wednesday, said she spent 50 years building her reputation as an advice columnist because she ‘stuck to the truth’
Judge Kaplan told Trump’s lawyers to take “special care to keep his voice low when conferring with counsel so that the jury does not hear.”
It followed a complaint from Carroll’s attorney Shawn Crowley that the jury could hear what he said.
Trump has been at the back table saying things loudly through Ms. Carrol’s testimony,” her attorney Shawn Crowley told the judge.
“Mr. Trump has been at the back table saying things loudly through Ms. Carrol’s testimony,” he added.
“(He said) the things she says are false, noting that she seems to have her memory back now.
“It’s loud enough for us to hear, I imagine it’s loud enough for the jury to hear.”
When asked by her attorney Roberta Kaplan why she was in the courtroom, Carroll said, “Donald Trump attacked me and when I wrote about it he said it never happened.
“He lied and shattered my reputation.”
Trump could be seen shaking his head dismissively.
Carroll told the court that in the same courtroom last year during a separate trial, a different jury found she had been “sexually assaulted by Donald Trump.”
After calling her a liar when she first went public in 2019, Trump “continues to lie about her,” Carroll said.
“He lied last month, he lied on Sunday, he lied yesterday,” she said: “I am here to get my reputation back and to stop him from telling lies.”
Carroll said she spent 50 years building her reputation as an advice columnist because she “stuck to the truth.”
When asked how her reputation had been damaged, she said that the day before she was to testify she looked on Twitter, formerly X, and saw a comment saying she was a “fraud.”
She said: ‘I used to only get noticed as a journalist. Now I’m known as a liar, a cheater and a fool.