Donald Trump Walks Out of Court During Closing Arguments of Defamation Trial

(CTN News) – Donald Trump stormed out of his defamation trial in New York during closing arguments. The former president has already been judged to have defamed writer E Jean Carroll for his remarks about her in 2019 while still president.

The jury in the case must now decide how much Donald Trump should pay in damages.

However, on Friday, he left court during Ms Carroll’s lawyer’s closing statements, which said Mr Trump was a liar who believed the rules did not apply to him.

Donald Trump Accused of Being a Liar Ignoring Rules

Before his hasty departure, Donald Trump was observed shaking his head as lawyer Roberta Kaplan repeatedly brought up Mr Trump’s sexual assault of Ms Carroll. Mr Trump was convicted of being responsible for the sexual assault in a separate civil trial last year.

US District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Ms Carroll’s lawyer, stated in court that the record “will reflect that Mr Trump rose and walked out of the courtroom”.

During Ms Kaplan’s final remarks, she told the court that the former president’s denial that he sexually attacked her had seriously hurt Ms Carroll’s reputation.

“This case is also about punishing Donald Trump,” stated Ms Kaplan, who said: “This trial is about getting him to stop once and for all” .

She claimed that Donald Trump had “continued to defame Ms Carroll even as this trial was ongoing”.

A civil trial last year revealed that Donald Trump sexually attacked Ms Carroll, a magazine journalist, in a New York department store in the 1990s. The jury also held him guilty of defamation for declaring her charges false, and he was sentenced to pay her almost $5 million (£4 million) in damages.

 

Despite the ruling, he consistently denies wrongdoing and even knows Ms Carroll.

“I don’t even know who this woman is; I have no idea where she came from. “This is another scam… it’s a political witch hunt,” Mr Trump tweeted early Friday morning on his Truth Social media platform.

The jury in this lawsuit will decide how much Donald Trump must pay Ms Carroll for his remarks.

Ms Carroll has requested $10 million in damages, which is more than the first trial, claiming that his words as a serving president harmed her more.

In her final statements on Friday, Mr Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, urged the jury not to award Ms Carroll any damages, claiming that her claims have “more holes than Swiss cheese.”

She stated that Donald Trump “should not have to pay” for threats made on Twitter against Ms Carroll and that he does not condone them. He didn’t direct them.”

Ms Carroll’s lawyers earlier informed the court that Donald Trump’s words resulted in death threats, rape threats, and internet hostility against her.

Ms Habba told the court that Ms Carroll was delighted to have the celebrity, noting that she now earns more money than she did in 2019, when the defamatory remarks were uttered.

She also wanted to portray Ms Carroll as a “scandalous” persona.

The jury will deliberate following Friday’s closing arguments, anticipating that verdict has produced enormous tension in the courtroom.

Before beginning her closing arguments, Ms Habba attempted to add new social media tweets into evidence, but the court refused.

After a heated exchange, Judge Kaplan stated, “Ms Habba, you are on the verge of spending some time in the lock-up; now sit down.”

Ms Habba, who has often traded barbs with the judge during this civil defamation trial, was heard swearing under her breath away from the microphone as she sat down, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

On Thursday, the pair exchanged several heated moments before Donald Trump’s testimony.

His testimony lasted only a few minutes due to severe regulations governing what he could say.