To be fair, they regularly spin a lot of things into that.
She claims covid exposure, but doesn’t wear a mask.
I guess one might respect consistency…
It would be amusing if she made the claim to delay the trial but now she, and Trump, would be required to wear masks during their next few appearances.
Over the last few years, (less recently) many courts have been quite rigid about their mask requirements. I don’t know about Judge Kaplan, but it would indeed be a pleasure to see the defense team all masked up.
And MAGA Twitter (I’ve seen Elise Stefanik and Catturd frothing) is up in arms over the libs delaying the trial to the day of the New Hampshire primary, I guess preventing Donald from campaigning or something.
Completely missing that it was Trump’s attorney asking for the delay, and Carrol’s attorney opposing it.
And then they refuse to comply, and get kicked out. “Does the defense have any rebuttal?” <empty courtroom> “The defense not having rebutted the claims, then…”
Hey, a guy can dream, right?
Honestly, that would probably be the best way (for Trump? for everyone?) for some of these trials to end. “We’d” get to see judges ruling against him and he, knowing full well most of these cases aren’t remotely winnable, gets to complain to his supporters about the judge, and we know the whole masking thing is already a touch subject for them. Trump would immediately spin this into something like 'I was fined [amount awarded to E Jean Carroll] for not wearing a mask. Can you believe it? No mask, equals, 5 million dollars. It’s an illegal ruling by an illegal judge that had already decided, before the trial even started, that he already decided that I’m guilty even though I’ve never seen that woman before and he knows, just like you all know, he knows I never met her, never touched her, he knows she’s a liar but he still ruled against me because he’s only motivated by politics and we will be taking it to the supreme court next week. On an unrelated note, I’m passing out pictures of the judge, on the back you’ll find his address, court schedule and a list of his fears."
the trial is on hold until tomorrow.
should trump testify, would the judge be able to have a buzzer? any time he doesn’t answer a question or starts campaigning… buzzzzz.
I have to assume if Trump’s closing argument lasts more than 30 seconds or so there’s no way he won’t run afoul of the court’s rules. I don’t think it’s a stretch to assume he’ll attempt to introduce new evidence, he’ll go on about things that the court has decided are wrong, he’ll campaign, he’ll almost certainly defame her even more, the judge is corrupt, the case is rigged, election interference, The Clinton Crime Family, The Biden Crime Family…
My WAG is that he won’t testify, either because the whole ‘I want to testify’ thing is a ruse and/or a bluff that was called or someone, somehow, will talk him out of it. I would hope his team gave him a script that, if followed, would let him ramble for about a minute but still keep him out of trouble. But we know that’s pointless.
I’d hate to be the judge here. How much leeway do you give him? How many warnings do you give before you start doling out real punishments? What does he have to say before you toss him in jail for the night?
Agree with you; I assume that if Trump speaks in court, he will commit yet another act of defamation against Carroll.
His goal will be a mis-trial… how many “jury will disregard” arguments can there be?
Statements made in court are privileged, so no defamation action can result from them, no matter how untrue or scurrilous.
Huh. I did not know that. I would guess in this case though, where the trial is only to assess damages (as the factual basis of defamation has already been decided), additional defamatory statements by Trump in his statements in court MIGHT POSSIBLY influence the jury when they are deciding the monetary figure that Trump must pay.
Bingo.
Without going too awfully far afield … it looks like statements made in court may be privileged. I’ll just provide a link for any who want to look at it further.
And one paragraph that I think may be on point (bolding mine.)
“In judicial proceedings[,] the protected participants include the Judge, the jurors, the attorneys, the parties and the witnesses,” who are granted the protection of absolute privilege “for the benefit of the public, to promote the administration of justice, and only incidentally for the protection of the participants.” “The immunity does not attach solely because the speaker is a Judge, attorney, party or a witness, but because the statements are … spoken in office.” Thus, for example, “statements made by counsel and parties in the course of ‘judicial proceedings’ are [absolutely] privileged as long as such statements ‘are material and pertinent to the questions involved … irrespective of the motive’ with which they are made.” The Court of Appeals has nonetheless “reiterated that [a]s a matter of policy, the courts confine absolute privilege to a very few situations.”
So is tomorrow the day that Trump is going to testify?
Here’s how I see it going:
- Trump immediately launches into an attack on E. Jean Carroll, the judge, the system and anyone else he can froth at the mouth about.
- The judge may or may not let this go on for a couple of minutes (just in case we need to put an exclamation point on Trump’s lack of impulse control) but will then shut it down.
- The judge will order the jury to disregard everything Trump just said and may also kick Trump out of the courtroom.
- Trump will go on TV and complain endlessly about what a big mean unfair politically-biased poopy-head the judge is.
- MAGA supporters will agree with Trump.
And the jury will bump up the damages award another notch or three.
I don’t think Kaplan is likely to let it go for a couple of minutes. I suspect he’ll immediately stop Trump’s testimony, excuse the jury, have a word with Trump’s team, and either he agrees to stay on topic or he doesn’t testify. Unlike Engoron, this case has a jury present and Kaplan cannot afford to allow Trump’s testimony to meander.
I’m not predicting this, but it would be so sweet if after Trump’s first misbehavior the judge warns him that any further violations will be considered contempt. Naturally Trump would then testify inappropriately and…well, in my daydream, he then spends a couple of hours in the slammer.