Trump Takes The Stand in E. Jean Carroll Defamation Trial

President Trump took the stand on Thursday to testify in E. Jean Carroll’s ongoing defamation lawsuit against him.

He testified for a total of around 4 minutes before District Judge Lewis Kaplan ended it.

The Clinton-appointed judge refused to allow for Trump to re-visit the jury’s findings from another trial held in May, in which Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million.

Take a look:

JUST IN: Trump's lawyer Alina Habba calls the former president to the witness stand in E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial. pic.twitter.com/5s3RRKD6En

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) January 25, 2024

Donald Trump's testimony in the writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation case ended almost immediately after it began, with the former US president standing by his earlier testimony that Carroll's claim that he raped her was a hoax https://t.co/8qMqfLYdgk pic.twitter.com/vZyIVhmiUT

— Reuters (@Reuters) January 26, 2024

During Trump’s short testimony, he answered questions given by his lawyer, Alina Habba, and doubled down on his previous statements in the case.

When asked by Habba if he stood by his remarks made during an October 22 deposition in which he claimed Carroll’s rape allegation was a “false accusation, never happened, never would happen” and called her a “whack job” and “mentally sick”, Trump responded, “100% yes.”

After Trump’s testimony, the defense rested in the case. Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday morning.

Here’s more on Trump’s testimony in the civil defamation trial, from Reuters:

Donald Trump‘s testimony in the writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case ended almost immediately after it began, with the former U.S. president standing by his earlier testimony that Carroll’s claim that he raped her was a hoax.

“100% yes,” Trump told his lawyer Alina Habba in federal court in Manhattan, when asked if his comments in an October 2022 deposition in Carroll’s case were accurate.

Earlier on Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers played videotaped excerpts from the deposition, in which Trump called the former Elle magazine advice columnist “mentally sick” and a “whack job,” and threatened to sue her.

“It’s a false accusation, never happened, never would happen,” Trump said in the deposition.

Carroll, 80, is seeking at least $10 million over Trump’s June 2019 denials, when he was president, that he had raped her in the mid-1990s in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan.

Trump, 77, accused Carroll of making up the rape to boost sales of her memoir.

Last May, another jury ordered Trump to pay Carroll $5 million over a similar denial in October 2022. He is appealing.

Trump spent only four minutes on the witness stand after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who has overseen both trials, said he would not allow “do-overs by disappointed litigants” and let Trump revisit the first jury’s findings.

That jury concluded that Trump defamed Carroll, and sexually abused her by inserting his fingers in her vagina, and Kaplan said those findings were binding in the current trial.

Carroll’s case has become part of Trump’s campaign to retake the White House in the November election.

The Republican frontrunner has been shuttling between the courtroom and campaign stops while criticizing Carroll, the judge and the judicial process online and at press conferences.

‘YOU ARE INTERRUPTING THESE PROCEEDINGS’

Kaplan struck most of what Trump said on the witness stand from the record, meaning the seven-man, two-woman jury cannot consider it during deliberations.

Trump testified “yes I did” when Habba asked if he had publicly denied Carroll’s rape claim to defend himself, and “no” when asked if he had intended to harm Carroll.

He then said he had “wanted to defend myself, my family, and frankly the presidency,” but the judge instructed jurors to disregard this comment.

Donald Trump returned to a Manhattan federal courthouse on Thursday where he took the stand for what was ultimately less than five minutes — including multiple admonishments from Judge Lewis Kaplan — as he seeks to avoid a multimillion-dollar jury verdict against him in the civil defamation trial.

The trial centers on Trump’s 2019 comments about E. Jean Carroll, the writer who last year won a civil verdict over her claim Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when she first publicly accused him. Carroll is seeking at least $10 million.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday morning and the jury of nine could have the case by lunchtime.

Here’s what to know from Thursday:

• Trump testifies: After days of back-and-forth teases over whether he would appear, Trump was on the witness stand for mere minutes Thursday. The defense’s questions were effectively pre-cleared by the judge, as Trump was not allowed to re-litigate the verdict from last year. He stood by his previous denial of Carroll’s sexual assault accusation and said that he wanted to defend himself, his family and the presidency.