January 17 - Trump’s trial in E. Jean Carroll defamation case

Donald Trump clashed in court Wednesday with yet another judge overseeing one of his trials – after the judge in his civil defamation case threatened to remove the former president for making comments that could be overheard by the jury while his accuser was testifying.

The exchange with Judge Lewis Kaplan was merely the latest in a string of Trump’s in-court fights during two civil trials in New York over the past several months, offering a preview of what’s to come if any of the former president’s criminal trials are held this year as he runs for president.

Meanwhile, on the witness stand, E. Jean Carroll told the jury how Trump’s statements after she went public about him allegedly sexually assaulting her shattered her reputation and led to an onslaught of threatening messages. A civil jury last year found Carroll’s allegations to be credible.

“I thought I was going to get shot,” she said.

Carroll will return on the stand Thursday morning as Trump attorney Alina Habba finishes her cross-examination.

The former president is not expected to be there watching, as Trump plans to travel to Florida for his mother-in-law’s funeral, and Kaplan declined to postpone the trial in his absence at Trump’s request again on Wednesday.

Here’s what to know from Wednesday’s court session:

Court has concluded for the day with Trump attorney Alina Habba’s cross-examination of E. Jean Carroll.

Habba said she had about 30 minutes of cross-examination remaining, which will take place on Thursday.

Once Habba finished her questions, Trump walked out of the courtroom before the jury had exited, with Carroll still standing in the witness box.

Trump is planning to address reporters at his 40 Wall Street property in lower Manhattan.

A courtroom sketch shows E. Jean Carroll testifies during the second civil trial at Manhattan Federal Court in New York, on Wednesday, January 17.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba asked Judge Lewis Kaplan for a mistrial, arguing that E. Jean Carroll admitted to deleting threatening messages, which would be part of her claim of damages.

“I haven’t seen them and there’s no evidence of them,” Habba said.

Kaplan denied the motion and told the jury to disregard it.

Carroll confirmed she would delete threatening messages she received replying to her social media posts and to her email accounts. She stopped deleting them in 2023, she said.

Trump’s attorney confirmed that Carroll didn’t show the negative messages she said she deleted to the police or her own lawyers.

Habba asked Carroll if she thought the general public would believe her story right away. “I didn’t think who would believe or who would not believe, I just made the accusation,” Carroll said.

Habba then asked Carroll if she wrote in the book that she felt her allegations were so “odd” that she needed to clear them up from the start.

Carroll’s attorney objected, citing the judge’s rulings ahead of the trial that the assault allegations had already been decided by a previous jury.

Trump’s attorney asked Carroll if she was surprised there was backlash because of her article in The Cut.

“I didn’t look forward to backlash. I was surprised at the vehemence of the backlash,” Carroll said. “I expected there to be a reaction.”

Before an afternoon break in the trial, E. Jean Carroll testified there were about five hours between when her 2019 story containing the Donald Trump sexual assault allegations was published in New York Magazine’s “The Cut” and when Trump made a statement denying the allegations, in response to questioning from Trump’s attorney Alina Habba.

Habba argued in her opening statement Tuesday that Carroll’s story fueled the harassment, not Trump’s denials. 

People began sending negative and harassing social media posts to Carroll about the story before Trump made a statement, Carroll acknowledged on the stand.

Judge Lewis Kaplan called for a trial recess when Habba improperly began reading from one of those harassing messages before entering it into evidence.

After the jury left the courtroom for the break, Kaplan told Habba, “You should refresh your memory about how it is you get a document into evidence.”

It’s not the first time Kaplan has admonished Habba today. Earlier, he told her that in his courtroom and any other federal courtroom she needed to stand while speaking. And after Kaplan denied her earlier motion to not hold the trial on Thursday and the judge told her to sit down, Habba said, “I don’t like to be spoken to that way.”

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he felt an obligation to attend “every moment of” the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial because, he argued without evidence, the judge presiding over the case is biased against him. 

Trump again lashed out at the judge for denying his request to postpone the civil trial. Trump had asked the judge to delay the trial to attend his mother-in-law’s funeral, but as a civil defendant, Trump is not required to attend the trial.

“Now, because I want to be at this Witch Hunt 100% of the time and watch what is going on, my attorneys asked the Judge for a one day delay so that I can attend the funeral of my beloved mother-in-law, with my wife and entire family, tomorrow in Palm Beach, Florida,” Trump posted. 

“The Judge, angrily, and somewhat surprisingly, said NO, you can go to the trial, or you can go to the funeral, but not both. He is abusive, rude, and obviously not impartial but, that’s the way this crooked system works!”

E. Jean Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan finished her questioning of Carroll in the civil defamation case, and now Trump attorney Alina Habba is beginning the cross-examination.

At the end of direct questioning, Carroll said she wrote her advice column in Elle Magazine for 27 years — up until 2019 when the magazine ended her contract. It was the longest-running advice column in American publishing, Carroll said on the stand. Now she publishes her columns on Substack, an online publishing platform.

Carroll’s attorney showed the court one of Trump’s Truth Social posts about Carroll that he published during the trial Tuesday.

She asked if any of the assertions in Trump’s posts were true. “About me? No.”

Before the jury entered the courtroom for afternoon proceedings, Donald Trump’s attorney Michael Madaio made a motion for Judge Lewis Kaplan to recuse himself from the civil defamation case, citing a “general hostility.”

Madaio pointed to an exchange Kaplan had with Trump before the lunch break after E. Jean Carroll attorney Shawn Crowley complained Trump could be heard commenting during Carroll’s testimony. The judge warned Trump that he could be removed.

“There was representations made by Shawn Crowley, who was your former law clerk, regarding some of the conduct by President Trump. You immediately accepted the representations. There was no opportunity for the defense to respond. There was no consultation of the defense,” Madaio said. “You made representations that President Trump cannot control himself, that he’s disruptive.”

“And there’s also been a general hostility towards the defense throughout this case,” Trump’s attorney added as the former president returned to the defense table.

No further discussion was had about that motion or Trump’s behavior before lunch.

E. Jean Carroll reacts during questioning by her lawyer Roberta Kaplan at the Manhattan Federal Court in New York on Wednesday.

E. Jean Carroll explained how she thought last year’s verdict against Donald Trump would put a stop to his attacks against her – but then he continued to disparage her at a CNN town hall one day later.

“For a few glorious hours I thought this is it,” she said, recalling after the jury found Trump liable in the first trial last May. But then, “Mr. Trump went on a CNN town hall and repeated the same lies,” she testified.

Trump’s attorney Alina Habba again objected to testimony about Trump statements outside the two from 2019 at issue in this trial. Judge Lewis Kaplan instructed the jury that statements Trump made at CNN’s town hall the day after the trial verdict in May are still relevant to punitive damages in this trial and whether Trump acted with malice.

Some background about Trump’s comments: At the CNN town hall, Trump claimed that Carroll made up the story and dismissed the verdict against him.

Trump continued attacking Carroll when pressed about the verdict at the town hall. “And I swear and I’ve never done that, and I swear to – I have no idea who the hell – she’s a whack job,” he said.

The jury saw Trump’s comments to CNN’s Kaitlan Collins at the town hall event the day after the verdict in their first trial. Carroll said she learned of his comments on CNN the next morning.

“I was sound asleep the night before. I went to bed very early,” Carroll said.

The comments at the town hall were different than his social media posts about her, she said. “He’s doing it to a large crowd and drawing laughs about sexual assault.”

Carroll took a long pause before telling the court how she felt hearing the laughs. “I felt worthless,” she said.

A courtroom sketch shows Donald Trump sitting with arms folded beside his attorney, Alina Habba in Federal Court, in New York, on Wednesday, January 17.

Judge Lewis Kaplan warned former President Donald Trump that he could be removed from the courtroom if he’s disruptive following another complaint from E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer that Trump could be heard making comments during testimony.

Carroll lawyer Shawn Crowley said Trump could be heard commenting, saying things like, “It is a witch hunt” and “It really is a con job.”

Kaplan responded, “Mr. Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which what has been reported to me consists of. And if he disregards court orders, Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial.”

Trump threw his hands up in response.

“I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that,” Kaplan said.

Reporters in the courtroom heard Trump say, “I would love it.”

“I know you would,” Kaplan said. “You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance apparently.”

The parties then left the courtroom for lunch.

George Conway is seen in Washington, DC, in 2021.

E. Jean Carroll recalled the role that Trump critic George Conway played in her deciding to challenge the then-president in court.

When Conway’s name came up, Donald Trump smirked, turned his head toward his attorney Alina Habba, who also smiled as they exchanged glances.

Carroll recounted in court, that after she went public with her allegations in 2019, Conway, a lawyer, asked her at a party if she’d consider filing a lawsuit against Trump. He had an iPad, she recalled, and “he took me through the steps.” Days later, he followed up in an email recommending Roberta Kaplan, her current attorney, represent her.

Carroll also said she had been a part of a documentary about a woman finding her voice at 70 or 80 years old and finally speaking up. It wasn’t limited to only statements about Donald Trump, she said. She was never paid for it and filming stopped when the lawsuit got going, Carroll testified.

During Carroll’s testimony, Trump has leaned over several times to speak with Habba. He also appeared to look at the video screen before him at times where the evidence was displayed. He also took a long glance over at the jury at one point. Several members of the jury are taking notes on the notepad.

E. Jean Carroll described several safety precautions she’s taken out of fear as a result of the threatening messages, including hiring security and keeping a gun at her bedside.

She added that she is “hyper-alert” now: Personal security is with her at this trial, as they were at the last trial, Carroll said. She’d hire them more often, but she can’t afford it.

When asked why she didn’t just delete her social media accounts after the threats poured in, Carroll said, “Social media is my life blood.” “To be a writer and not be on social media in 2024 would be to live in oblivion,” she added.

Perhaps anticipating cross-examination from Trump’s lawyers, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan showed the jury messages between Carroll and her friend in June 2019.

“I’m fine as wine,” she said in a message to Lisa Birnbach, who testified at the first trial that Carroll confided in her soon after the altercation with Trump in 1996.

“I always say I’m fine. That is what I say when people ask me how I am,” Carroll said.

Trump is regularly leaning over to his lawyers on either side of him, reacting to nearly every bit of testimony from Carroll.

E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer showed the jury harassing messages that Carroll received about her allegations against Donald Trump.

Carroll testified that she received threatening messages, including on June 21, 2019, the day Trump made one of the statements at issue in this trial.

Trump leaned over to his attorneys reacting as she was speaking.

“It’s when you see the words, the image comes into mind, and I believed it was happening right now,” Carroll said. “I deleted the message to protect myself.” 

Carroll’s voice broke as she described another violent message she received around after the trial last year: “I apologize to the people in the audience because when a — when a woman sees the words, we can’t help but think of the image. And so he wants me to stick a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger,” she said, reading the email. “And I imagine many of us now can picture that.”

Judge Lewis Kaplan told Donald Trump to “take special care” not to speak too loudly when talking to his lawyers during E. Jean Carroll’s testimony so that the jury doesn’t hear him.

“I’m just going to ask Mr. Trump to take special care to keep his voice down when he’s conferring with counsel so that the jury does not overhear it,” Kaplan said before the jury was brought in.

Kaplan’s tone was cautionary and not too stern, acknowledging Trump has a right to confer with his counsel.

Before the break, an attorney for Carroll complained that Trump could be heard saying things like “it’s false,” during Carroll’s testimony.

Donald Trump has been in the courtroom Wednesday morning watching the testimony of E. Jean Carroll, shaking his head at one point when Carroll accused him of assaulting her and conversing with his attorneys while she testifies.

After the jury left the courtroom for a mid-morning break, one of Carroll’s attorneys, Shawn Crowley, told the judge Trump could be heard “loudly saying things” about Carroll’s testimony, like “it’s false” and “she’s gotten her memory back.” Crowley said since it’s loud enough for her to hear at the table two rows in front of Trump, she said it’s possible the jury could hear it, too.

On Wednesday morning, Trump entered the courtroom before Carroll, who was in an anteroom since she was going to be called as the first witness. He slung his winter coat onto the back of chair and sat down between his attorneys. As Carroll was called to the witness stand, there was no visible reaction from Trump, and she did not turn to look toward him.

When Carroll testified that Trump assaulted her, lied and shattered her reputation, Trump shook his head from side to side.

For most of the first hour of testimony, Trump was looking straightforward, passing notes to an attorney and leaning over to talk to his lead lawyer. He otherwise did not appear to gesticulate or make any other physical reaction to the testimony.

E. Jean Carroll is seen leaving federal court in New York on Tuesday.

E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan asked Carroll a series of questions about the first June 2019 statement Donald Trump released denying her allegations of sexual assault.

“He said I made up an accusation to sell a book — that is a lie. He said I made an accusation for publicity — that is a lie,” Carroll said. “He said my false accusation damaged the real victims of sexual assault — that is a lie.”

“The thing that really got me about this is from the White House, he asked if anyone has any information about me, and then if they did, to please come forward as soon as possible, because he wanted the world to know what’s really going on and that people like me should pay dearly,” Carroll said on the stand.

Carroll’s attorney also reviewed a story in The Hill, in which Trump gave a comment denying the allegations in 2019 and told The Hill reporter, in part, that Carroll is “not his type.”

“It means I’m too ugly to assault,” Carroll said on the stand Wednesday.

E. Jean Carroll explained to the jury her 2019 book, “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal,” and how she came to include Donald Trump in it. 

Carroll is testifying in this civil trial to decide how much money in damages, if any, former President Donald Trump must pay for his 2019 defamatory statements about her sexual assault allegations against him.

“I was overwhelmed with the honesty of these women, and I thought, my God, I’m such a hypocrite. They’re telling me their opinions. I’m holding back, and then I said I’m 95 years old. If I don’t do it now, I will never do it,” Carroll said, exaggerating about her age.

Judge Lewis Kaplan stopped Carroll, granting an objection from Trump’s lawyer, when the writer began to describe the altercation she says she had with Trump in the 1990s at the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman.

The judge instructed the jury they’ve already been told the facts they’re expected to accept.

The tension between Judge Kaplan and Alina Habba continues. Habba objected to an answer from Carroll that speculated on what women felt who she interviewed for the book.

“First of all, when you speak in this courtroom or any courtroom in this building you’ll stand up,” the judge admonished Trump’s lawyer.

Judge Kaplan also cautioned Carroll again to answer the questions as they’re asked.

E. Jean Carroll arrives at the Manhattan federal court on Wednesday.

E. Jean Carroll is testifying about how Donald Trump’s continued attacks have harmed her reputation, while explaining to the jury her background.

“I’m 80 years old, so I spent 50 years building a reputation as a magazine and magazine journalist, both in articles and an advice column. My column was very popular. People appreciated my articles because I stuck to the truth and used the facts,” Carroll said.

Carroll explained that she had her advice column, had her own talk show for a time, and appeared frequently on network television like the Today show. She’s also written several books.

When asked how her reputation has changed since Trump’s 2019 comments about her, Carroll said: “So previously I was known simply as a journalist, and now I’m known as a liar, a fraud, and a whack job.”

Carroll explained that Trump has not let up in his attacks on her.

Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan walked her through her background, which Carroll also did for the jury at the first trial. She was raised in Indiana by parents who taught her two rules, she said, to smile and look on the bright side.

Trump’s attorneys have gained a few successful objections to Carroll’s testimony so far. One time Judge Lewis Kaplan (no relation to the attorney) told Carroll to respond strictly to the questions she’s asked. Another time he struck her testimony that her mother was a volunteer for the Republican Party.

Attorney Alina Habba leaves Trump Tower for a Manhattan federal court on Wednesday morning.

Trump lawyer Alina Habba renewed her effort Wednesday to get Judge Lewis Kaplan to postpone Donald Trump’s civil defamation trial while the former president travels to Florida for his mother-in-law’s funeral, drawing a sharp rebuke from the judge.

Habba said it is “insanely prejudicial” to make Trump choose between attending the trial or his mother-in-law’s funeral Thursday.

“Your Honor, clearly we are not going to finish this trial tomorrow,” Habba said. “This trial will go into next week. I am asking your honor to have the kindness that my client deserves to be with his family tomorrow and not have to choose to miss trial that he has a right to be here for.”

Kaplan denied the request and asked Habba to sit down.

Trump has the right to be present either in person or by counsel, Kaplan said. “And nobody is stopping him from doing either. The application is denied. I will hear no further argument on it. None. Do you understand that word? None. Please sit down.”

Trump’s lawyer asked the judge not to speak to her in that way. “I don’t like to be spoken to that way. And we are going to be here for several days,” Habba said. “I’m not going to speak to (Carroll lawyer) Ms. (Roberta) Kaplan like that. I will not speak to you like that. I am asking your honor to please refrain from speaking to me in that manner.”

The judge did not acknowledge the comment, but instead told her the request for an adjournment is denied and again told her to sit down.

E. Jean Carroll has taken the stand.

The former magazine columnist will testify in the trial of former President Donald Trump, who a civil jury found assaulted her in a department store in the 1990s, sitting in the courtroom.

Former President Donald Trump is back in a federal courtroom in New York for the second day of the defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll.

Trump continues to toggle back and forth between the courthouse and campaign trail with the New Hampshire primary next week.