NEW YORK (dpa-AFX) – The judge in the second libel trial against Donald Trump in New York has threatened to exclude the ex-president from the courtroom because of numerous disruptions. “Mr. Trump has the right to be here. That right can be forfeited if he is disruptive – and what I have been told is part of that,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said in the Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday, according to consistent media reports. “And if he disregards the court’s instructions – Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to exclude you from the process, I understand that you would probably like that.”
Trump reportedly responded: “I would love that, I would love that.” Judge Kaplan then said, “I know that because you just can’t control yourself under these circumstances, you just can’t.” Previously, Trump repeatedly shook his head and made derogatory comments during US author E. Jean Carroll’s testimony against him. “This is fraud,” he reportedly said, for example.
In her statement, Carrol spoke, among other things, of the threats she receives from Trump supporters and the fear she lives with every day since she went public with her allegations against the former US president.
This is Carroll’s second trial against Trump. At the end of the first, a New York jury found it proven in May that Trump had attacked Carroll in a luxury New York department store in 1996, sexually abused him and later slandered him. The jury then awarded the writer compensation of five million dollars (around 4.65 million euros).
Before the second trial began, a judge had ruled that Trump’s other comments were defamatory. The jury now only has to decide on the amount of compensation that the ex-president must pay to the woman. Carroll is asking for more than ten million dollars./cah/DP/he