Are the open sores on Donald Trump’s hand maybe affecting his brain’s ability to regulate his behavior? We are just asking, because he almost got his ass thrown out of the courtroom during his E. Jean Carroll defamation trial yesterday. It’s like the festering tumor of a man just can’t control himself.
The short version is that Carroll was testifying about the abuse she endured from Trump and from his supporters after she went public, and Trump refused to shut his pig mouth. The jury, of course, could hear him.
“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” Judge Lewis Kaplan told [the defendant] after Carroll’s lawyer complained that the jury could hear him disparaging the former advice columnist’s testimony. “I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that.”
“I would love it,” Trump growled from the defense table.
“You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently,” Judge Kaplan said.
We bracketed [the defendant] above because the Palm Beach Post couldn’t refrain from referring to Trump in adoring terms as the “2024 Republican frontrunner.”
Anyway, the jury got to hear Trump’s editorial comments throughout. “It is a witch hunt,” Trump babbled, and Carroll’s lawyer heard it. “It really is a con job,” he bitched. Also “it’s false” and “she’s gotten her memory back.” He shook his head dramatically back and forth, where the jury could see him.
After the judge reprimanded Trump for his behavior, Trump lawyer Michael Madaio tried to get the judge to recuse himself because of his “general hostility.” The judge said fuck off.
Carroll testified Wednesday about the threats she got from the mouthbreathing denizens of MAGA Land after she went public with her allegations that Trump had raped her many years ago, and after Trump made a statement about it. She said she thought she was “gonna get shot.”
Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) led her through some of the threats she had received. One said the “penalty for lying about rape should be execution by hanging or firing squad,” while another said “stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger and send yourself to HELL.”
“I spent 50 years building a reputation,” Carroll said. “Now I’m known as a liar, a fraud, and a whack job.”
That’s a bit different from Melania’s Double Trump lawyer Alina Habba arguing that Carroll has gotten rich and famous off being sexually assaulted by Trump. They’d like to argue that Carroll has gotten rich and famous off accusing Trump, but alas, a jury has already unanimously found Trump liable for sexual assault.
Habba continued with that yesterday, of course, because we guess calling Carroll a whore is the only defense strategy Donald Trump’s lawyer has, or at least the only one Habba remembers from law school:
“She wants President Trump to pay for the risks she took,” Trump lawyer Alina Habba told the jurors Tuesday. “Her career has prospered and she has been thrust back into the limelight like she always wanted.”
Classy.
Habba also tried to get a mistrial because Carroll might have deleted some of the death threats she got from people who do Donald Trump’s bidding. “The witness just admitted to deleting emails,” she said.
At another point, Habba blamed Carroll for the death threats from MAGA world, saying they came in before Trump had made a statement about it. Habba tried to read some of those messages and then submit them into evidence, which prompted the judge after a break to gently explain, “You should refresh your memory about how it is you get a document into evidence.”
At one point he had to remind her that if she’d like to make an objection, she’d have to stand up, like a lawyer.
It might seem insane to stand in front of a judge as a real lawyer and behave like this, but remember, good lawyers won’t work for Trump. This is the level of expertise he has to settle for.
At the end of Wednesday, Trump of course got on Truth Social to defame E. Jean Carroll some more and call her a liar, and also attack the judge.
Among other things, he whined that the judge wouldn’t reschedule today’s trial so he could go to Melania’s mother’s funeral. (He doesn’t have to be at the trial.) He posted, “I feel an obligation to be at every moment of this ridiculous trial because we have a seething and hostile Clinton-appointed Judge, Lewis Kaplan, who suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”
And so forth:
“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!”
Sure.
We will end this post with this fun moment from yesterday that made us giggle. Surprise, it involves Alina Habba looking like an idiot.
For live updates on how Habba is being bad at her job today, here’s a good Twitter account. Trump isn’t there, because he is indeed at his mother-in-law’s funeral, probably crying a lot, like a person who feels things and loves his family.
Or something.
Alina Habba Debuts Genius Strategy In New Trump Defamation Trial, Just Kidding She’s Still A Dipshit
[Palm Beach Post / CNN]
Evan Hurst on Twitter right here.
@evanjosephhurst on Threads!
I have profiles those other places but I think I forgot how to log on.
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