UPDATE (Jan. 26, 2024 4:45 p.m. E.T.): This piece has been updated to reflect the decision of the jury on Friday afternoon. The jury ordered Trump to pay more than $83 million in damages for defaming E. Jean Carroll.
Donald Trump finally took the stand Thursday in his own defense during the second defamation trial brought by E. Jean Carroll. But, surprisingly, Trump’s much anticipated time on the witness stand lasted a whopping three minutes — at most.
Trump’s attorney Alina Habba initially attempted to convince Judge Lewis Kaplan to permit her to ask Trump at least three questions. She even argued that she had the right to ask about Trump’s intent behind making his defamatory statements, but Kaplan shot her down and told her that he alone would decide what Trump had the right to do in court, admonishing Habba that it was his job, not hers.
Trump’s much anticipated time on the witness stand lasted a whopping three minutes — at most.
In the end, Kaplan only allowed the following line of questioning to Trump: “You viewed your deposition?” to which Trump responded: “I stand by it 100%, yes.” And, “Did you instruct anyone to hurt Ms. Carroll?” to which Trump responded: “No,” with some more words — but the judge struck the rest of his testimony after the word “no” and instructed the jury to disregard it.
So why even bother to take the stand to testify if it was going to be so short? I think Trump thought he might be able to get away with more than he was able to do. I also think he’s been trying to intimidate Carroll by being physically present in the courtroom. Furthermore, Trump basically only testifying that he stood by his sworn deposition is one way to back-door in his denials of liability for the sexual abuse and the defamation.
Recall that Trump’s liability was already determined prior to this trial, based upon the jury’s verdict from the first defamation trial. Kaplan reinforced that there would be “no do-overs” by Trump, meaning Trump was already limited going into this trial with what evidence he could present in his defense. But let’s not forget: In his first defamation trial, Trump was listed as a defense witness and he voluntarily chose not to testify. So he has no one to blame but himself at this stage.
Trump has already shown that he has zero regard for the law, as well as zero respect for the first jury’s findings that he defamed Carroll. He continues to attack Carroll, both on TV and on social media.
Trump must have known the legal realities going in: This courtroom battle with Carroll was all but lost before it even began. But we shouldn’t expect that to change the behavior we’ve seen him exhibit throughout this trial. He likely will continue his own version of “testimony” outside of the courthouse by continuing to deny that he even knew Carroll or that the sexual abuse for which he was found liable ever occurred.
Waging constant attacks on Carroll outside court may feel to Trump like a better strategy than trying to convince this jury that he didn’t do anything wrong, but we’ll have to let Kaplan be the judge of that. As I’ve written before, in the interest of full disclosure, I am good friends with Carroll. Regardless of our friendship, my legal analysis is based on the facts and case law. Personally, and given what we’ve seen so far in this trial, I don’t see how Trump testifying Thursday is going to reduce his damages exposure as jurors deliberate on the amount owed to Carroll.
Kaplan has been running a tight ship since day one of presiding over the Carroll v. Trump cases. He has shown that he has a zero-tolerance policy for Trump’s antics inside of his courtroom. As such, Habba knew that she would not get any leeway from Kaplan to explore more questioning with Trump, considering the pretrial rulings, as well as the judge’s declaration immediately prior to Trump’s testimony that Trump could not make any arguments on the stand that were against the prior jury’s findings. Kaplan was also keeping Trump on a tight leash, and so it's unsurprising that his entire direct examination lasted 1-2 minutes total.
But Habba tried anyway. Just like her client, and likely because her client has demanded it, she has tried to push the boundaries of what the judge will allow. Also, if Habba is thinking about the appellate issues, then she likely made the requests for more areas for Trump’s testimony, even knowing that they’d be denied, because she wanted to preserve those arguments for the purposes of an inevitable appeal.
There was plenty of evidence that Habba had zero control over her client.
There was plenty of evidence that Habba had zero control over her client, and that alone militates toward why Trump was kept on such a tight leash by Kaplan. During an argument back-and-forth between Habba and Kaplan, before the jury was brought back in from their lunch break, Trump interrupted the judge and his lawyer to mutter loudly, “I wasn’t at the trial. I don’t know who this woman is. I never met this woman.”
Kaplan quickly admonished Trump and instructed him to keep his voice down. When asked whether Trump would abide by the proffer that Habba provided to the court, Habba admitted that she “doesn’t have a crystal ball.” In other words, she had no clue what her client would say once he took the stand and went predictably off script.
Trump did himself no favors by being on the stand for mere minutes. The jury heard nothing and saw nothing that was beneficial for his defense. But be on the lookout for Trump drama outside of court — he’ll likely try to make up for the drama he couldn’t showcase inside it.