Judge tells Trump lawyer Alina Habba to ‘sit down’ in tense exchange after he denied adjourning E. Jean Carroll defamation trial so ex-president could attend Melania’s mother’s funeral
Donald Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba was told to have another testy back-and-forth with the judge in the E. Jean Carroll trial after he argued for a delay so he could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.
The ex-president’s lawyer’s plea was rejected by Judge Lewis Kaplan in the tense exchange before the columnist took the stage to testify in the $10 million defamation case.
Abba fired back by initially refusing to sit down, saying, “I don’t like being addressed that way, Your Honor.” Kaplan said, “It’s denied, sit down.”
Trump’s legal team wants a pause in the legal proceedings so he can be at Melania’s side at her late mother Amalija Knavs’ funeral in Florida on Thursday.
But Kaplan has repeatedly rejected the bids and made it clear that Trump will not have to appear in court.
On Wednesday, Carroll took the stand and told the jury that Trump “shattered” her reputation by “lying” about how he sexually assaulted her.
Donald Trump’s attorney, Alina Habba, got into another heated exchange with the judge in the E. Jean Carroll trial after arguing that there should be a delay so he can attend his mother-in-law’s funeral
A New York jury found last year that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. The new lawsuit is based on comments he made about her while he was president.
Habba filed another request Thursday to delay the trial so Trump could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.
She told the court that Trump had an “unexpected death in our family that only the Lord can control.”
Habba said it would be “insanely detrimental” if Trump had to choose between the funeral and attending court.
She said: ‘I ask your honor for the kindness that my client deserves to be with his family tomorrow’
Judge Kaplan shot back: “The right he has under the Supreme Court of the United States is indeed the right to attend in person or through counsel, and no one is stopping him from doing so. The application is rejected. I will hear no further addition to it’.
The ex-president’s lawyer (pictured) was told to ‘sit down’ in the tense exchange before the columnist took the stage to testify that Trump had ‘shattered’ her reputation by ‘lying’ about his sexual assault in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room
Carroll’s dramatic testimony began after Trump left Trump Tower early Wednesday morning with mysterious red cuts on his hands
Habba protested, “Your Honor,” but Judge Kaplan said, “I said sit down.”
When Habba didn’t sit down, Judge Kaplan asked her what else she wanted to ask.
Habba siad: ‘I don’t like being addressed that way, Your Honor.
“I ask your honor not to speak to me in that manner.” Kaplan said, “It’s denied, sit down.”
When Habba sat down, Carroll was invited to take the stand.
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.”
Habba, pictured leaving court yesterday, told the judge she ‘doesn’t like being spoken to in that way’ after the tense altercation
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.
“People aren’t eager to write to an advice columnist who the president thinks is an embarrassment.”
Carroll talked about growing up in rural Indiana with a Republican family and winning a beauty pageant in her youth.
At the age of 13, she sent her first article to write, but she had to wait twenty years for her first success, which came at the age of 36.
But the mood remained testy, and after an objection, Judge Kaplan said, “Let’s make this clear to both sides.
‘The first lawyer to say something when a witness is (testifying). This isn’t tag team lawyering.”