According to longtime conservative political observer Andrew McCarthy, Donald Trump’s attempt to bait the judge overseeing the E. Jean Carroll rape and defamation trial fell flat which led to the former president’s attorney being put on the spot.
Writing for the National Review, McCarthy — who recently wrote he sees no path for Trump to return to the Oval Office — noted that the former president and his lawyer have been warned by Judge Lewis Kaplan of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, about attacks on the trial proceedings and Carrol with the threat of contempt of court charges.
Undeterred, Trump once again lashed out at Kaplan as “extremely hostile” to him and boasted that he would be returning from a Scotland golf expedition to “confront” Carroll before calling the Manhattan trial a “disgrace.”
According to McCarthy, Trump’s attack put Kaplan in a bind where the trial could have gone off the rails if he sanctioned the former president.
Instead, McCarthy wrote, Kaplan is too smart for Trump and didn’t take the bait.
“Kaplan has also been trying to move the trial to a conclusion consistent with what he told the jury would be its length, and thus he gave Tacopina a deadline by which Trump was to announce his intentions; Tacopina duly told Kaplan his client would not be testifying (or even attending the trial),” McCarthy wrote before adding, “Kaplan is a smart guy. He knows that Trump is trying to bait him into a public dressing-down, a contempt citation, and/or an order that it is too late for the defendant to change his mind about testifying, which Trump would then fold into his public-relations effort to portray the trial as a travesty if the jury finds him liable.”
McCarthy added, “That Trump’s outrage was performative is clear.”
“Rather than respond angrily, the judge told Tacopina late Thursday that he was aware of reports about Trump’s statements, and the lawyer assured the court that he had spoken with his client before announcing that Trump would not testify, ” McCarthy wrote.
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He then predicted, “Assuming that deadline passes, Kaplan will consider the evidentiary phase of the trial complete and proceed to summations, as scheduled. If Trump squawks after that, it will be clear that he’s just trying to spin what has actually been his carefully considered decision not to attend or testify at the trial.”
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