He testified for under three minutes. But former President Donald Trump still broke a judge’s rules on what he could tell a jury about writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault and defamation allegations, and he left the courtroom Thursday bristling to the spectators: “This is not America.”
Testifying in his own defense in the defamation trial, Trump didn’t look at the jury during his short, heavily negotiated stint on the witness stand. Because of the complex legal context of the case, the judge limited his lawyers to asking a handful of short questions, each of which could be answered yes or no — such as whether he’d made his negative statements in response to an accusation and didn’t intend anyone to harm Carroll.
But Trump nudged past those limits.
“She said something that I considered to be a false accusation,” he said, later adding: “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency.”
You sexually assaulted her in 1996 you dumb sack of shit. It was two full decades before you fell ass backwards into the Oval office. This has nothing to do with the presidency. It’s about you and your crimes.
Edit: The defamation claim is absolutely about the sexual assault taking place. That’s what he was referring to when he said “something I consider to be a false accusation”. Anyone trying to tell you this trial has nothing to do with the sexual assault is an idiot.
You’re missing it.
He’s claiming the presidency he experienced changes/colors/empowers his current and past actions.
To him, a president or former president should never be on trial for this. To him a president had ascended from crimes of the flesh.
I am all for this as a policy as long as Obama promises to murder him.
I also wouldn’t mind Biden shooting him. Maybe the Republicans then change their minds about gun controll.
Enough Malarkey
Really, it should be Hilary, but life’s not always fair.
Does that mean we can charge him with crimes of the spirit? Heresy or purity charges, anyone?
Please have my upvote. Excellently stated. Thank you.
This trial isn’t about the sexual assault. That was already established in a previous case, where he was ordered to pay $5M in damages.
This trial is about him repeatedly calling her a liar, and other worse things when the memoir she had published in 2019 described the sexual assault. He’s unsuccessfully attempting to argue that since he was president at the time, his actions as president should be immune from civil and criminal litigation.
I think that even if he and his attorneys weren’t some of the dumbest people in the world, it would still be a very difficult position to prove. As it turns out, though, they are some of the dumbest people in the world, so there’s no shot that that defense will work. And he doesn’t exactly help his case by repeatedly claiming that Carroll was lying about the sexual assault, since that has already been established as fact by the court.
Edit: Very confused about the downvotes here. What am I missing?
What am I missing? I figure it’s because people don’t know the intricacies of the two trials. He’s already been found liable for the sexual assault in the first completed case. This current case has the same basic facts so the judge ruled that there is no re-litigation to be done on liability, only on damages.
I presume your downvotes are most likely related to the first sentence in your post. They get that far and likely assume that you’re denying the first case’s conclusions without catching the subtle nature of the two cases.
… he left the courtroom Thursday bristling to the spectators: “This is not America.”
Sir, this is consequences.
I’m going to use this…everywhere.
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That would have led to a mistrial, and further served to delay justice. What Judge Kaplan did was absolutely the right thing, and in the best interest of all parties involved.
stupid question here : why would it have led to a mistrial? if he is the one on trial and he starts running his mouth, its words directly from him. so they can absolutely be used against him (since he said them in court). if he sits there and makes claims (for example) “i was in hawaii at the time” and there are plenty of records to prove he wasn’t in hawaii… that can be used against him … he knows he is under oath and he freely gave the testimony … so it can’t be argued that he was coerced into giving the information…
again… i say stupid question because i’m sure there is a way that it could lead to a mistrial , i just don’t know what it is.
With respect to witness testimony, it could be something like this:
A motion for mistrial may arise after a witness gives testimony involving a forbidden area and the testimony would have otherwise been inadmissible.
It’s complicated.
That’s not a stupid question, it is a good question and a valid one. First, I am not a lawyer. However, my layman understanding is this:
In a jury trial there are strict rules regarding testimony specifically so that information is not introduced into direct evidence or via testimonial evidence that could serve to unduly prejudice a jury. Obviously ALL testimony is prejudicial in some capacity in the sense that it is intended by its very nature to change the opinion of the fact finders in a legal procession, in this case a jury and a civil trial.
These rules for what can or cannot be introduced into evidence via testimony are litigated before trial, and even during trial because there are often disagreements between the parties about what constitutes unduly prejudicial testimony. The judge rules on that, which determines what can and cannot be introduced.
If Donald Trump was allowed to bloviate about anything he damn well pleased on the stand, especially regarding information that had already been ruled inadmissible, his own lawyers could then turn around and call for a mistrial on the grounds that the judge had already ruled that information to be inadmissible. Granted that is unlikely to happen, but it would not be unprecedented nor does the judge want to leave that as an ambiguous issue on appeal.
So, in order to maintain fairness in the legal process the judge preordaines what information a jury can hear in order to avoid that situation in the first place.
Pretty sure the deal is that the judge’s main job is to ensure that the conduct of the trial follows the file of law. If it can be shown that he didn’t do that, anyone can call for a mistrial. But I’m a software engineer, not anyone who has any training in this stuff.
I came here to ask the same. If you ask someone a yes or no question, and they go off on some deranged tangent that further incriminates themselves, how would that cause a mistrial?
He’s not allowed to lie to the jury.
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The only trap here is the one Donald cannot keep shut.
thatsthejoke.jpg
Love how the artist makes him look like Steve Ditko’s version of Hammerhead from the old Spider-Man comics lol.
I think he looks like the cat meme
the cat meme
This is so vague I don’t even know where to begin.
Yeah realized that later
Grumpy cat or broccoli cat? I expect the latter but I can’t see it with his mouth closed. Come to think of it, he doesn’t look like Trump with his mouth shut.
The broccoli cat
Except Hammerhead had amazingly shiny and strong hair, this drawing shows Donny’s thin and weak hair in the style of Hammerhead but too weak to hold up against a weak wind without hair gel.
Why do news articles continue to say he “allegedly” assaulted her? This is just irresponsible journalism, designed to soften the fact that Trump sexually assaulted her, and a court has proven that fact
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