Former President of the United States Donald Trump (2017-2021) sat in the dock again for a defamation case against writer E. Jean CarrollFrom where He told the judge that he would “love” to be expelled of the court. Judge Lewis Kaplan warned the Republican that he could be removed from the courtroom if he made comments to his attorney while Carroll’s testimony was taking place. “Trump has a right to be present here (but) that right can be lost if he is disruptive. And if he ignores court orders, Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding him from the trial,” Kaplan said. To which Trump responded: “I would love to.”

He also let his comments resonate on his social network, Truth Social, where today he published that Kaplan is “a totally biased and hostile person.” “The entire New York system is RIGGED against me by the fact that not only am I a former Republican president, but I am also the Republican front-runner and I beat corrupt Joe Biden, BY A LOT” (although voter fraud in the election of 2020 has never been proven), can be read in one of the many long messages published by Trump, who spent the entire day in court today.

Trump and Carroll, face to face

In this trial, Trump will have to respond to accusations of defaming Carroll when she assured, in 2019, that she did not know the writer, and that her confession – made that same year – that the former president had sexually abused her in the 1990s was false. Carroll is asking for $10 million in compensation. Last May, a jury already convicted Trump of sexual abuse and defamation of the writer, but not of rape. Since then, the former president has continued to maintain that he does not know her, again and again casting doubt on her version of events.

Trump and Carroll saw each other for the first time in years when the writer took the stand to give her version of the events, since yesterday Carroll turned his back to her throughout the day. This Wednesday, Carroll was questioned by her lawyer and told how as a result of the comments that Trump made in 2019 – while he was president – she received hate messages in her email and social networks. -messages that you deleted immediately after reading. “I’m here because Trump harassed me (sexually) and when I said it he denied it, which affected my reputation,” Carroll said.

The columnist said that among the “hundreds” of messages she received every day at that time there were three things in common: They called her a liar, ugly, and said that since her accusation was false, she was harming the victims of true complaints. In addition, he commented on some threats with a broken voice and said that since 2019 he has been sleeping with a revolver and 22 bullets on the nightstand, although today he acknowledged that he does not have a weapons permit.

Judge refuses to annul the trial

Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, asked Kaplan for a mistrial, saying that Carroll admitted to deleting threatening messages between 2019 and 2023, information that could be key to deciding compensation for damages. However, Kaplan rejected the motion and asked the jury – made up of seven men and two women – to ignore this request. Carroll, for his part, said that he deleted them out of “instinct” and noted that he never notified the police about the issue, because he believed that they could not do anything, or to friends, to not worry them.

From court to rally

On Monday Trump claimed his first pre-election victory after sweeping more than 50% of the votes in the Iowa caucuses and just yesterday, after attending the first day of the trial, he held another political rally in New Hampshire. The campaign for New Hampshire, where the path may be cleared for the last Republican candidates, will take Trump again today to that state, where – as he assured today in a brief appearance before the press – “we have a poll that indicates that we are in the lead with big difference”.

Trump will not attend the hearing this Thursday because he will attend the funeral of his mother-in-law – Melania Trump’s mother – after Judge Kaplan refused to suspend the hearing for that reason. Kaplan, Trump told reporters, is not only an anti-Trump judge, “he is a disgusting judge.”