News/Commentary

Judge rejects Trump’s motion for mistrial in E Jean Carroll defamation case

May 1, 2023 | | Print Article

Attorneys for former President Trump submitted a request early Monday morning to Judge Lewis Kaplan seeking a mistrial in his defamation trial due to the judge’s “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings,” and it was unsurprisingly denied by Kaplan.

(Video Credit: Eyewitness News ABC7NY)

The accuser, E. Jean Carroll, returned to the witness stand on Monday after the denial of a mistrial by Kaplan. Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina resumed cross-examination of Carroll about five hours after requesting a mistrial in her defamation civil case.

Tacopina filed the 18-page letter earlier requesting the mistrial, arguing that Kaplan has made “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” against him and asked the judge to “correct the record for every instance in which the Court has mischaracterized the facts of this case to the jury” or provide him greater leeway in cross-examining Carroll.

“Here, despite the fact trial testimony has been underway for only two days, the proceedings are already replete with numerous explains of Defendant’s unfair treatment by the Court, most of which has been witnessed by the Jury,” the letter contended.

According to Reuters, he claimed the effect of Kaplan’s rulings “manifests a deeper leaning towards one party over another,” including in comments where the judge “openly expresses favoritism.”

“Carroll sued Trump, alleging he raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type, and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book. Carroll will be on the stand Monday for a second day of cross-examination by Tacopina. Trump has denied any wrongdoing,” CNN reported, conveniently leaving out that this is solely a defamation/civil trial as the statute of limitations has run out for her to legally claim Trump raped her.

“Among the issues raised by Tacopina are the judge’s ruling restricting Tacopina from asking Carroll additional questions about any efforts Carroll made to try to obtain security camera footage from the department store, ‘expressing a corroborative view’ that there was no one on the sixth floor of the department store at the time of the alleged assault and calling certain lines of the defense attorney’s questioning ‘argumentative’ in front of the jury,” the leftist media outlet continued.

Trump sent an email to journalists last week attacking E. Jean Carroll, questioning her rape allegations. She filed the defamation suit in 2019. The former president has accused her of lying about being raped by him.

Carrol took the stand last week, claiming that Trump had defamed her, “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen; he lied. He shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”

After the former president called Carrol a liar over her accusations, Kaplan objected to his comments on Truth Social, according to Raw Story. The judge told Tacopina that Trump “may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability. … And I think you know what I mean.”

The attorney also challenged Kaplan’s addressing a Twitter post by Trump’s son Eric that discussed how LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman was helping Carrol fund her case.

Tacopina called Eric Trump’s tweet protected speech and objected to the judge saying that it might leave Donald Trump “sailing in harm’s way” and that “some relevant United States statutes” might be implicated.

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