An attorney for former President Donald Trump said Monday that he plans to testify in his second trial for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she publicly accused him of sexual assault in 2019.
Trump had earlier signaled that he wanted to testify in the civil trial, with reports indicating he could take the stand as early as Monday. However, court was adjourned early after Kaplan sent home a juror who felt sick, The Guardian reported. Trump attorney Alina Habba also said she wasn’t feeling well and that she might have been exposed to COVID-19 by her parents, according to NBC News.
Both Carroll and Trump were in the courtroom at the time.
Habba asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to allow Trump to give his testimony on Wednesday, CNN reported.
“Tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary and he needs to be in New Hampshire,” she said, according to the news network. “He was planning to testify — clearly, he flew in last night to be here. I would just need his testimony to be Wednesday in light of the news about the juror today.”
Kaplan declined to immediately decide whether to adjourn court proceedings for Tuesday, The Guardian reported. Trump isn’t required to give testimony in the civil case and did not take the stand during his first civil defamation trial, according to The Associated Press.
Kaplan earlier ruled that if Trump takes the stand, he cannot dispute Carroll’s version of events, The New York Times reported. The former president has denied any wrongdoing, calling it a “witch hunt” and repeatedly claiming that he did not know Carroll.
Last year, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in the 1990s and then defaming her in 2022, when he claimed in a social media post that she was lying about the incident. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
Trump has appealed the ruling, the AP reported.
The second trial, which began last week, focuses on how much Trump will owe Carroll after Kaplan determined that the former president also defamed her in statements that he made in 2019, after she went public with her allegations. Carroll is seeking at least $10 million, testifying last week that Trump “lied, and it shattered my reputation,” according to Reuters.
Court proceedings are expected to resume at 9:30 a.m. ET on Tuesday, according to The Guardian.
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