Donald Trump, currently on trial in New York on civil claims of sexual assault, though he’s not personally attending, will continue facing the claims in court, federal Judge Lewis Kaplan quickly and unsurprisingly decided this week.
Joe Tacopina, a lawyer for the former president, had sought a declaration of a mistrial based on supposedly unfair treatment by the judge, including in front of the jury. As CNN noted but also seems obvious, it’s difficult to imagine Kaplan himself would’ve all of a sudden declared himself inappropriately biased and effectively shut down the proceedings for now. One of the lines of argument Tacopina raised was over supposedly antagonistic targeting from Kaplan of a line of questioning Tacopina was using. Don’t judges ordinarily exert close control over conduct in a courtroom to the point where Kaplan claiming Tacopina was being “argumentative” fits with long established patterns?
Trump’s trial could result in only civil penalties, meaning something like monetary fines. The case originates with claims filed by writer E. Jean Carroll, who’s said Trump assaulted her in a store in a portion of the 1990s (unlike Trump’s false characterization of her claims alleging she couldn’t even pin down any date remotely close). During some of Tacopina’s recent questioning of Carroll, he’s brought up factors like an episode of the television show Law & Order: SVU featuring a storyline involving sexual assault and the same chain of stores where Carroll has said Trump assaulted her those years ago.
The implication would seemingly have been, of course, that Carroll was making up her story based on the program — which, besides its other problems, seems just remarkably hollow. Unfortunately, considering the world in which we all live, it probably wouldn’t be that difficult to find some other account (real or fictional) involving rape and those stores. In questioning from a lawyer on her team, Carroll had the opportunity to directly state she hadn’t based her account of Trump’s behavior on that show. Trump continues facing other local, state, and federal investigations in other areas. Read more on this trial from CNN here.
