Judge threatens to expel Trump from civil trial for courtroom behavior

NEW YORK — Donald Trump was threatened with expulsion from his Manhattan civil trial Wednesday after he repeatedly ignored a warning to keep quiet while writer E. Jean Carroll testified that he shattered her reputation after she accused him of sexual abuse.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told the former president that his right to be present at the trial will be revoked if he remains disruptive. After an initial warning, Carroll’s lawyer said Trump could still be heard making remarks to his lawyers, including “it is a witch hunt” and “it really is a con job.”

“Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial,” Kaplan said in an exchange after the jury was excused for lunch, adding: “I understand you’re probably very eager for me to do that.”

“I would love it,” the Republican presidential front-runner shot back, shrugging as he sat between lawyers Alina Habba and Michael Madaio at the defense table.

“I know you would. You just can’t control yourself in these circumstances, apparently,” Kaplan responded.

Afterward, Trump criticized the judge in brief remarks to reporters at an office building he owns near the courthouse. He called the Bill Clinton appointee “a nasty judge” and a “Trump-hating guy,” echoing his own social media posts that Kaplan was “seething and hostile,” and “abusive, rude, and obviously not impartial.”

On Wednesday, Judge Kaplan denied a request from Trump’s lawyers that he step aside from the case involving Carroll, a longtime Elle magazine advice columnist.

Kaplan cracked down after Carroll lawyer Shawn Crowley complained for a second time that Trump could be heard “loudly saying things” throughout her testimony as he sat at the defense table.

Crowley suggested that if Carroll’s lawyers could hear Trump from where they were sitting, about 12 feet from him, jurors might’ve been able to hear him, too. Some appeared to split their focus between Trump and the witness stand.

“I’m just going to ask that Mr. Trump take special care to keep his voice down when conferring with counsel to make sure the jury does not hear it,” Kaplan said before jurors returned to the courtroom after a morning break.

Earlier, without the jury in the courtroom, Trump could be seen slamming his hand on the defense table and uttering the word “man” when the judge again refused his lawyer’s request that the trial be suspended today so he could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral in Florida.

Carroll was the first witness in a Manhattan federal court trial to determine damages, if any, that Trump owes her for remarks he made while he was president in June 2019 as he denied ever attacking her or knowing her. A jury last year already found that Trump sexually abused her and defamed her in a round of denials in October 2022.

Carroll’s testimony was somewhat of a tightrope walk because of limitations the judge has imposed on the trial in light of the previous verdict and prior rulings he’s made restricting the infusion of political talk. Habba lobbed multiple objections seeking to prevent the jury from hearing details of Carroll’s allegations.

“I’m here because Donald Trump assaulted me and when I wrote about it, he said it never happened. He lied and he shattered my reputation,” Carroll testified.

“He has continued to lie. He lied last month. He lied on Sunday. He lied yesterday. And I am here to get my reputation back and to stop him from telling lies about me,” Carroll said.

She became emotional as she read through some of hundreds of hateful messages she’s received from strangers, apologizing at one point to the jury for reading the nasty language aloud.

Carroll said Trump’s smears “ended the world” she knew, costing her millions of readers and her “Ask E. Jean” advice column, which ran in Elle for more than 25 years. The magazine has said her contract ended for unrelated reasons.

Carroll said her worries about her personal safety after a stream of death threats led her to buy bullets for a gun she inherited from her father, install an electronic fence, warn her neighbors of threats and unleash her pit bull to roam freely on the property of the small cabin in the mountains of upstate New York where she lives alone.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.