Former U.S. President Donald Trump is leaving the campaign trail Monday and heading back to a New York courtroom, where he says he wants to testify against awarding more damages to a woman who has accused him of sexually abusing her decades ago in the dressing room of a department store.
Trump, the leading candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has long disparaged the claims of writer E. Jean Carroll, a one-time advice columnist for Elle magazine, in social media posts and at campaign events.
But U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has ruled that if Trump testifies, he cannot dispute her account of the attack, since a jury in a related case last year already decided that he sexually abused her after a chance encounter at the posh Bergdorf Goodman store and awarded her $5 million in damages.
The case last year stemmed from Trump’s disparagement of Carroll in 2022 comments, while the case set to be decided now by a nine-member jury dates to comments he made in 2019 while he was president, just after Carroll had published a book in which she recounted her accusations.
Trump said then that Carroll, now 80, was “totally lying” and that he could not have raped her because she was not his “type.”
Carroll testified last week, “It means I’m too ugly to assault.”
The jury is tasked only with deciding what damages, if any, Carroll is entitled to because of Trump’s 2019 comments. With the limitations on his testimony, it was not clear exactly how Trump might defend himself.
Trump, 77, has alternated trips to the New York courtroom with campaign swings through the northeastern state of New Hampshire ahead of Tuesday’s Republican presidential primary, where polls show him with a substantial lead over his remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, his one-time ambassador to the United Nations.
He has treated the court case like a campaign stop, holding news conferences at the end of the day to attack Carroll’s claims and Kaplan as biased against him.
“They are weaponizing law enforcement at a level like never before,” Trump said Sunday night at a New Hampshire rally, adding, “You know where I’m going to be. I don’t have to be there, but I want to be there because otherwise, I can’t get a fair shake. I’m going to be in court.”
The Carroll defamation claims are in a civil case, and Trump faces no threat of imprisonment. But he does face an unprecedented 91 criminal charges across four indictments in cases that could go to trial this year.
As Carroll testified last week, her attorneys complained to Kaplan that Trump was making disparaging side comments about her to his lawyers that the jury, seated fewer than 4 meters away, could possibly hear.
The complaints by Carroll’s lawyers led to a contentious exchange between Trump and the judge.
Kaplan told Trump that his right to be at the trial would be revoked if he continued to ignore warnings to keep his comments to his lawyers quieter and out of earshot of the jury.
But 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.”
After excusing the jury for lunch, Kaplan told Trump, “I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial. I understand you’re probably eager for me to do that.”
“I would love it,” Trump shot back, shrugging as he sat between lawyers Alina Habba and Michael Madaio at the defense table.
“I know you would like it. You just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently,” Kaplan responded.
“You can’t either,” Trump muttered.
As Trump watched, Carroll told the jurors, “I’m here because Donald Trump assaulted me, and when I wrote about it, he said it never happened. He lied and shattered my reputation.”
Once, Carroll testified, she was a respected advice columnist. “Now, I’m known as the liar, the fraud and the whack job.”
Trump made repeated disparaging comments about Carroll on his Truth Social platform in the days leading up the trial.
Carroll testified last week, “He has continued to lie. He lied last month. He lied on Sunday. He lied yesterday.”