Former President Donald Trump’s audible reactions to writer E. Jean Carroll’s testimony against him in federal court on Wednesday prompted the judge to threaten to remove him from the courtroom, according to multiple outlets.
Shawn Crowley, an attorney for Carroll, told Judge Lewis Kaplan before a midmorning break that Trump had been “loudly saying things,” ABC News reported.
Journalists in the courtroom, where video cameras are banned, observed Trump shaking his head, scoffing and angrily speaking with his attorney Alina Habba. At various points he reportedly remarked “She now seems to have gotten her memory back,” and “It’s false.” He also reportedly called the judge a “nasty guy.”
During a break in testimony, Kaplan said he would make Trump leave if he continued to disrupt proceedings.
“Mr. Trump has the right to be present here,” Kaplan said, according to ABC News. “That right can be forfeited and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive, which is what has been reported to me.”
“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” he said. “I understand you are probably very eager for me to do that.”
“I would love it,” Trump replied.
“I know you would,” Kaplan said, according to CNN. “You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.”
This is the second time Carroll has shared her story on the stand, but the first time Trump has heard her in person. He did not attend a trial last April that Carroll brought under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.
“I’m just going to ask Mr. Trump to take special care to keep his voice down when he’s conferring with counsel so that the jury does not overhear it,” Kaplan said after the midmorning break on Wednesday, according to CNN.
The outlet described the judge’s tone as “not too stern,” in a departure from the tone Kaplan has taken in various tense exchanges with Habba.
In one particularly charged moment, Habba requested that Kaplan adjourn the trial on Thursday so Trump could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral — a request the judge had previously heard and denied, as Trump is not required to be in court himself.
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“I will hear no further argument on it. None. Do you understand that word? None. Please sit down,” Kaplan reportedly said.
Habba then told the judge: “I will not be spoken to that way, Your Honor.”
Kaplan instructed her to sit down.
Carroll maintains that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s. Trump forcefully denies the accusation, and has called Carroll a liar who is making things up to sell books.
A panel of New York jurors is expected to decide how much Trump should pay for defamation. Carroll is asking for upward of $10 million.
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Carroll, an advice columnist, said in her testimony that Trump “shattered my reputation,” The Associated Press reported.
“Now, I’m known as the liar, the fraud and the whack job,” Carroll reportedly said, adding that she receives far fewer letters asking for advice than she used to. She has reportedly fielded “hundreds” of messages threatening violence.
Habba is expected to cross-examine Carroll later on Wednesday.
A jury in a separate trial already found that Trump sexually abused and defamed Carroll, which is why the currently empaneled jury is focusing on monetary damages, rather than the veracity of Carroll’s claims.
Although the previous jury determined Trump did not technically rape Carroll under the letter of the law, Kaplan said the claim was “substantially true under common modern parlance.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.