Government

Team Trump Takes One More Stab At Pissing Off Judge Before Start Of E. Jean Carroll Defamation Trial

Cool strategy, bro.

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(Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

On the eve of the E. Jean Carroll defamation trial, Trump’s lawyers are making one last push to maximally piss of Judge Lewis Kaplan before facing the jury.

The case was originally filed in 2019, and since then Trump has ducked process, removed to federal court, claimed that he was acting as president when he implied that Carroll was too unattractive to assault, moved to dismiss and postpone countless times, and generally made himself obnoxious to the court. Perhaps if he’d been less obstreperous and more inclined to turn his homework in on time, he’d have gotten a better reception back in March when his sparklemagic lawyer Alina Habba filed a bizarre motion to exclude evidence from Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, two other women who accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances, on the grounds that perhaps he hadn’t grabbed them by the genitals. She also sought to exclude the “Access Hollywood” tape where he famously bragged about his habit of grabbing women by the genitals.

Judge Kaplan rejected that motion, finding that the testimony and tape were pertinent under the Rule 415 FRE exception for propensity evidence in the case of sexual assault. He also found that the motion was untimely.

But not as untimely as a motion for “clarification” filed by attorney Joseph Tacopina this weekend in which he accused Carroll’s lawyers of “clear efforts to coach and influence one of her key trial witnesses” by suggesting that there was confusion as to which part of Stoynoff’s body Trump had tried to make unwanted sexual contact with:

If Defendant, according to Ms. Stoynoff, only touched her shoulders and kissed her, and never touched or attempted to touch her genitals, then Your Honor’s conclusion that such evidence is not enough for her testimony to be allowed should be conclusive. Because the second part of Your Honor’s analysis based on other evidence seems grounded in the uncertainty of whether Defendant actually “groped” Ms. Stoynoff, we propose the following before Ms. Stoynoff is allowed to testify:

Defendant’s counsel simply asks a few questions of the witness voir dire and outside the presence of the jury as to exactly what parts of her body Defendant allegedly touched or attempted to touch. If she testifies that he only touched her shoulders and attempted to kiss her, we would ask that Your Honor reconsider the prior March 10 ruling and not allow her to testify.

[Blink, blink.]

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Unsurprisingly, Judge Kaplan yeeted this one into the sun:

Although defendant characterizes his application as one for clarification, the characterization is mistaken. The application in fact is a request that the Court reconsider a previous ruling and, on reconsideration, to reach the opposition result.

The application is untimely because any motion for reconsideration should have been filed well before this request.

Even if the application were timely, the defendant has failed to show, as would be necessary to warrant reconsideration, that the Court’s original decision overlooked matters or controlling decisions.

And even if the defendant had made such a showing, nothing he has put forward warrants any relief from the prior decision or any voir dire examination.

The application is denied.

At least the world will be spared watching Tacopina, who has behaved like a bull in a china shop since he entered his appearance in February, trying to impeach a sexual assault victim on the witness stand. But clearly there’s plenty more ugliness where that came from.

Carroll v. Trump I [Docket via Court Listener]
Carroll v. Trump II [Docket via Court Listener]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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