Dem
51
GOP
49
After a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay E. Jean Carroll $5 million for calling her a liar, the first thing he did was to again call her a liar. She added these comments to her pending lawsuit for comments he made in 2019 and the judge ruled in her favor from the bench. The trial starting tomorrow is not about whether he defamed her again—Judge Lewis Kaplan has already decided that he did. It is about how much he will have to pay her for the additional defamation. The decision about damages will be made by a jury, not the judge.
After Trump's outburst in Judge Arthur Engoron's courtroom last week, where he attacked the judge, the court, and the judicial system, Carroll wants to prevent another such outburst if Trump chooses to address the jury. Consequently, she has asked Kaplan to prevent Trump from relitigating the case. She wants the judge to stop Trump if he claims he is not a liar or that he did not sexually assault Carroll in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
Carroll's lawyer, Roberta Kaplan (who is not related to the judge), warned the judge that Trump may try to use his testimony to score political points, rather than address the matter of how much damage Carroll has suffered as a result of his defamation. She wants the judge to warn him that any attempt to turn the courtroom into a political rally will be met with court-imposed sanctions. (V)