Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan was forced to repeatedly warn, rebuke, and reprimand Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba during Friday’s closing arguments in the $10 million E. Jean Carroll civil defamation case against the ex-president who is now an adjudicated rapist.
Judge Kaplan long ago warned Donald Trump and his attorneys that it is established fact – after E. Jean Carroll won her first sexual abuse and defamation civil case – that Donald Trump is liable for sexual abuse and defamation, and later wrote that Trump in “common modern parlance” was found to have committed rape:
“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
Trump attorney Alina Habba on Friday ignored Judge Kaplan’s prior warnings, telling the jurors who will decide how much Trump will have to pay E. Jean Carroll for defamation, that that Trump repeatedly “has said the same thing,” because it is “the truth.”
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“He has said the same thing over and over again, and do you know why? It’s the truth,” Habba said, Politico’s Erica Orden reports. Judge Kaplan told the jury to disregard that remark.
Professor of law, frequent MSNBC legal commentator, and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann responded to Orden’s post, writing: “Habba flirts with contempt of court here as this is asking for jury nullification. The court has already ruled based on the first trial which Trump lost that it was NOT the truth.”
“You know why he has not wavered — because it’s the truth,” Habba also told the jury.
“That line prompted a furious objection from Carroll’s lawyer,” The Messenger reports, noting Judge Kaplan sustained the objection. “As Habba walked close to that line again, Kaplan warned: ‘If you violate my instructions again, Ms. Habba, there may be consequences.'”
The Messenger’s Adam Klasfeld also reports at one point during her closing argument Haba told the jury, “Ladies and gentlemen, in our country, you have a constitutional right to speak.”
Carroll’s attorney objected.
“Sustained,” Judge Kaplan ruled. “You have a constitutional right to do some kinds of speech and not others.”
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CNN adds at another point during closing arguments, “Habba attempted to toe the line of denying Carroll’s allegations again, telling the jury that Trump has ‘consistently stated his position as is his American right.'”
“Judge Lewis Kaplan cut her off to again instruct the jury that they must accept that it’s been previously established by a prior jury that Trump sexually assaulted Carroll.”
“Yes, it’s been established by a jury,” Habba replied.
“’It is established, and you will not quarrel with me,’ Kaplan responded, telling Habba to finish her presentation.”
Earlier Friday, as The Messenger noted, Judge Kaplan was forced to warn Habba, saying: “You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup.”
“Sit down,” he also told her.
All closing arguments have now concluded, and the judge has given the jury his instructions. A verdict could come as soon as Friday afternoon.
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