Just one day before the New Hampshire Republican primary, former president Donald Trump may take the stand to tell a jury what he thinks about the woman who says he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
Trump could testify as soon as Monday in the defamation trial over his 2019 comments branding Carroll a liar who faked a sexual attack to sell a memoir. He plans to be in court as the New York trial resumes after a weekend break.
Because a different jury found last year that Trump sexually abused Carroll, U.S. District Judge Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has ruled that if the former president takes the stand now, he won’t be allowed to say she concocted her allegation or that she was motivated by financial or political considerations.
But even while just watching the proceedings, the voluble ex-president and current Republican front-runner hasn’t checked his contempt for the case.
Writing on her Civil Discourse blog, former prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote that a Trump testifying can only end badly as the trial is to see who much in damages he must pay Carroll.
‘The smart money says there’s no way that his lawyers would expose him to cross-examination at the hands of Carroll’s highly competent legal team,’ she wrote.
‘Only the amount of damages is in question, and that’s not a topic Trump’s testimony is particularly helpful with; he can only make it worse. Those damages probably go higher if Trump takes the stand and acts in his predictable fashion,’ Vance added.
While Carroll testified last week, he complained to his lawyers about a ‘witch hunt’ and a ‘con job’ loudly enough so that the judge threatened to throw Trump out of the courtroom if he kept it up.
Trump piped down and stayed in court, then held a news conference where he deplored the ‘nasty judge.’
‘It´s a disgrace, frankly, what´s happening,’ Trump told reporters, repeating his claim that Carroll’s allegation was ‘a made-up, fabricated story.’
Besides tangling with Kaplan, Trump bucked the New York state judge in his recent civil business fraud trial involving claims that he inflated his wealth.
Trump, who denies any wrongdoing, delivered a brief closing argument of sorts without committing to rules for summations and assailed the judge from the witness stand.
He also was fined a total of $15,000 for what the judge deemed violations of a gag order concerning comments about court staffers. Trump’s attorneys are appealing the order.
In Carroll’s case, her lawyers have implored the judge to make Trump swear, before any testimony, that he understands and accepts the court´s restrictions on what he can say.
‘There are any number of reasons why Mr. Trump might perceive a personal or political benefit from intentionally turning this trial into a circus,’ attorney Roberta Kaplan wrote in a letter to the judge, who is no relation.
Trump is contending with four criminal cases as well as the civil fraud case and Carroll’s lawsuit as the presidential primary season gets into gear.
He has been juggling court and campaign appearances, using both to argue that he’s being persecuted by Democrats terrified of his possible election.
Trump is expected to travel after Monday’s court session to an evening campaign event in New Hampshire, which holds its Republican presidential primary Tuesday.
His trips to court at times also have amplified media coverage of developments that he likes – such as an accounting professor’s testimony for Trump’s defense in the fraud trial – and his criticisms of developments that he doesn’t.
He regularly addressed the news cameras waiting outside the fraud trial in a New York state court.
Cameras aren’t allowed in the federal courthouse where the Carroll trial is taking place, so he at one point left and held a news conference at one of his New York buildings even as his accuser continued testifying against him.
‘I´m here because Donald Trump assaulted me, and when I wrote about it, he said it never happened. He lied, and he shattered my reputation,’ Carroll, a former longtime Elle magazine advice columnist, told jurors and Trump while he was still in court.
Trump doesn´t have to attend or give testimony in the civil case.