A COVID scare and the New Hampshire primary may foil Trump's plans to testify in E. Jean Carroll trial
Stephanie Keith/Getty Images; Brandon Bell/Getty Images
- Donald Trump intends to testify in E. Jean Carroll's defamation trial against him, his lawyer said.
- The trial was delayed Monday for a juror COVID scare — and Tuesday is the New Hampshire primary.
- If the trial isn't delayed another day, as Trump's lawyers requested, he may lose his chance to take the stand.
Donald Trump rolled into Manhattan federal court Monday ready to testify in his own defense in E. Jean Carroll's ongoing defamation lawsuit.
Then juror No. 3 called out sick — possibly with COVID-19.
And Tuesday? Well, that's the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary — and Trump made clear through his defense team Monday that he plans on being there.
Now, that chain of events — a sick juror, and the New Hampshire primary — may well conspire to keep Trump off the witness stand entirely.
Trump's myriad legal problems — four criminal cases and even more civil ones — were widely anticipated to cause a traffic jam in his race to reclaim the presidency.
The opposite is also happening, as his campaign schedule jams into his court calendar.
If COVID-19 doesn't bring the case to a standstill, and testimony resumes Tuesday, Trump playing hooky to attent the primary would mean the trial will barrel forward without him — quite likely closing the window of opportunity for him to take the stand.
If that happens, it would be decisions Trump himself has made that will effectively self-gag him.
"My client just reminded me — I was in trial mode — he needs to be in New Hampshire," Alina Habba, the lead attorney representing Trump in the case, said in court Monday morning, after saying that, like the juror, she too has been feeling a bit feverish.
"I would just need for his testimony to be Wednesday," Habba told US District Judge Lewis Kaplan.
The judge, who has shown little patience for delay or rule-bending by Trump and his defense team, reserved the decision on pushing back the trial any further, pending the next update on whom, among the jurors and parties, may have tested positive.
Just two more brief, non-Trump witnesses have yet to be heard in the case: former Elle editor Robbie Meyers for Carroll's side and journalist Carol Martin for the defense.
Those two witnesses are expected to wrap by day's end on Tuesday. The judge could order the trial to move to closing arguments without Trump taking the witness stand.
The judge's announcement that a juror had coronavirus symptoms came first thing in proceedings Monday, just after 10 a.m., after Trump and Carroll had taken their seats but before jurors had taken theirs.
"Juror No. 3 was on his way to the city," the judge told the room. But while en route, the juror found he was "feeling hot and nauseous."
The juror was instructed to go home, take a COVID-19 test, and tell the court if he tested positive. Habba said she didn't want the trial to keep going without him.
The judge paused the trial until Tuesday, but that day will be busy as well, given the New Hampshire primary.
Carroll's lawyers argue that Trump caused her harm when he defamed her by calling her a liar when she accused him of sexual abuse in the 1990s, damaging her reputation as a truth-telling advice columnist.
On Truth Social, Trump used Monday's delay to tell his followers yet again that he knows "absolutely nothing about" Carroll, even though a jury found last year that he sexually abused her. He also complained the trial was taking place in the thick of election season, even though it was his own lawyers who fought for years to delay the case.
"They could have all began years ago, or years after, but, certainly not DURING the Election," he wrote. "In actuality, they should have never been brought at all, because I have done nothing wrong."
Before sending everyone home Monday morning, the judge also ruled on Habba's motion for a mistrial in the case over Carroll deleting death threat emails.
"Denied in all respects," Kaplan said.
from Business Insider https://ift.tt/2TeQh7x
No comments