Trump testifies in E. Jean Carroll defamation trial

Donald Trump returned to a Manhattan federal courthouse on Thursday where he took the stand for what was ultimately less than five minutes — including multiple admonishments from Judge Lewis Kaplan — as he seeks to avoid a multimillion-dollar jury verdict against him in the civil defamation trial.

The trial centers on Trump’s 2019 comments about E. Jean Carroll, the writer who last year won a civil verdict over her claim Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when she first publicly accused him. Carroll is seeking at least $10 million.

Closing arguments are scheduled for Friday morning and the jury of nine could have the case by lunchtime.

Here’s what to know from Thursday:

Catch up on all of the key takeaways from the trial on Thursday ahead of closing arguments.

Donald Trump says, "I never met the woman," to Judge Lewis Kaplan as his lawyer Alina Habba stands on January 25, in this courtroom sketch.

Before Donald Trump took the stand, his lawyer Alina Habba and Judge Lewis Kaplan had a 10-minute conversation about the scope of the former president’s testimony.

In the middle of that discussion, Trump raised his voice and said unprompted, and out of nowhere, “I never met the woman. I do not know who this woman is. I was not at the trial. I don’t know who this woman is.”

Kaplan told Trump to keep his voice down. As the judge asked Habba if her client was aware of the limits on his testimony, Trump leaned over to Habba, who was mid-answer and whispered.

Kaplan sternly told Trump he was interrupting the proceedings and it was not permitted.

At one point Habba consulted Susan Necheles, one of Trump’s criminal defense attorneys in the New York hush-money case, who was sitting in the well of the courtroom.

Thereafter, the jury was brought in and Habba called Trump as her witness. He walked past the jury – most of them had their heads down and only a few appeared to look at Trump.

Standing next to the witness stand, Trump raised his right hand and swore to give truthful testimony.

Seated, Trump answered the questions and stopped abruptly when the judge cut him off. When Carroll’s attorneys tried to ask Trump questions about the first trial, which he did not attend, his lawyers objected. Trump turned toward the jury and shook his head from side to side.

Unlike at the civil fraud trial where Trump gave meandering answers, attacked the judge and New York attorney general in the courtroom, and gave political speeches from the witness stand, he did not make ancillary comments while the jury was in the courtroom.

Former President Donald Trump is expected back in court in New York on Friday for the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, according to a source familiar with his plans. 

Trump briefly testified for roughly three minutes in his civil defamation trial Thursday.

The defense rested after former President Donald Trump briefly answered questions from his attorney Alina Habba.

Judge Lewis Kaplan dismissed the jurors, instructing them to return Friday morning to hear closing arguments and said they’ll likely have the case to begin deliberating by lunchtime.

Donald Trump testifies on January 25, in this courtroom sketch.

Donald Trump stood by his denial of E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault accusation during his testimony Thursday.

Attorney Alina Habba asked him, “Do you stand by your testimony in the deposition?”

“100% yes,” Trump replied.

Habba then asked Trump, “Did you deny the allegation because Ms. Carroll made an accusation?

Judge Lewis Kaplan, however, cut Trump off, saying: “Everything after ‘yes I did’ is stricken.”

Former President Donald Trump attorney Alina Habba’s final question to her client was: “Did you ever instruct anyone to hurt Ms. Carroll in your statements.”

Former President Donald Trump has taken the stand in his own defense at the civil defamation trial in New York.

It’s an extraordinary moment for Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination who faces multiple criminal trials this year, as well as ongoing civil litigation that threatens his business empire.

His testimony would be limited, as Judge Lewis Kaplan has ordered restrictions that Trump will not be allowed to testify that he didn’t assault E. Jean Carroll or that she lied about the rape allegation — since those questions are not before the jury.

As the E. Jean Carroll trial continues to unfold, Donald Trump’s attorneys are joining calls for the dismissal of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in the 2020 election subversion case against the former president and his co-defendants in Georgia.

In a filing in Fulton County Superior Court Thursday, Trump’s attorneys joined an effort to dismiss the case brought by one of his co-defendants, who alleged in a previous court filing that Willis was engaged in a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor on the case and has benefitted financially when he took her on vacations. 

The filing also points to public comments Willis recently made defending her choice to select the lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade, arguing that she violated Georgia rules for prosecutors. 

Trump’s attorneys claim that Willis made a “calculated effort to foment racial bias” against the defendants with her comments, which run the risk of prejudicing the public and prospective jurors. 

Read more about Trump’s effort to get Willis dismissed from the case.

The back and forth about Donald Trump’s testimony is getting more heated.

Trump attorney Alina Habba said she wants to ask the former president several questions, including having him confirm that he stands by all the testimony of his deposition and asking if he made the statements in response to E. Jean Carroll’s accusations

Trump interrupted Habba to say, “I never met the woman I don’t know who the woman is. I never met this woman.

Judge Lewis Kaplan admonished Trump: “I’m sorry Mr. Trump, you’re interrupting these proceedings by talking loudly while your attorney is talking, and that is not permitted.” 

Kaplan and Habba continue to debate the questions she’s allowed to ask.

“Ms. Habba I’ll decide what he has a right to do, that’s my job, not yours,” the judge said.

Former President Donald Trump will testify in his own defense at the civil defamation trial in New York, his attorney Alina Habba said in court. 

Habba told Judge Lewis Kaplan that it will be “very brief.”

The parties are first discussing what Trump will say and which questions he will answer.

Carol Martin testifies on January 25, in this courtroom sketch.

Carol Martin testified that she was concerned about E. Jean Carroll around the time of the 2020 election, and that Carroll told her “a bit” about death threats she’d received.

In a further attempt to explain the text messages raised by Donald Trump’s defense counsel, Carroll’s attorney asked Martin whether her friend “loved the adulation that she got after Donald Trump defamed her in June 2019.”

“I do not believe that at all,” Martin said.

Where things stand: Martin has concluded her testimony and the courtroom broke for lunch. It is still unclear if Trump will testify this afternoon.

Carol Martin, a longtime friend of E. Jean Carroll, testified Thursday that she was afraid of being involved in a lawsuit against Donald Trump, saying that the “climate” in the United States felt “dangerous.”

In an attempt to clarify her texts about Carroll, Martin testified she was concerned about Carroll as she was considering filing the second lawsuit against Trump around the time of the 2020 election.

Further describing the political climate around the time Martin said, “I was very concerned my friend was right in the middle of a lawsuit.”

CNN’s Kara Scannell reports:

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Donald Trump, far left, looks on during Robbie Myers’ testimony on January 25, in this courtroom sketch.

As he sits at the defense table, former President Donald Trump is less active today in court than he was last week.

He has not been making any audible comments in court, as he had done last week, only speaking to his attorney Alina Habba once so far.

Trump did lean in to read some of the text messages on the screen in front of him as Habba presented them to the court during Carol Martin’s testimony.

Former Donald Trump adviser Peter Navarro arrives at court in Washington, DC, on January 25.

Meanwhile, the ongoing legal drama surrounding Donald Trump and his allies continued today in Washington, DC, where his former trade adviser was sentenced to four months in jail.

Peter Navarro was sentenced for contempt of Congress after defying a subpoena related to the congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

Navarro was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress in September.

E. Jean Carroll’s longtime friend Carol Martin testified Thursday that she regretted earlier text messages in which she said Carroll’s “narcissism had run amok.”

In another text exchange with her daughter, Martin wrote that Carroll is “like a drug addict and the drug is herself.”

Martin said on the stand Thursday she’s “very sorry” about sending the messages and called herself a little “hyperbolic,” adding that it was a bad choice of words. 

Remember: The text messages are key to Trump’s defense strategy that Carroll has exaggerated her claims. In the first Trump-Carroll defamation trial, Martin said she was having issues with Carroll at the time she sent the text messages and later felt bad about it.

Donald Trump’s attorney Alina Habba is seeking to undermine E. Jean Carroll’s claims that her safety was at risk as a result of the former president’s disparaging statements about her.

While questioning Carroll’s longtime friend Carol Martin on the stand Thursday, Habba pointed to texts in which Carroll wrote to Martin that she had no security concerns at the time.

Habba asked Martin whether she felt that Carroll enjoyed the attention that came with her lawsuits against Trump.

Martin replied that was true “at different times in early years.”

During the first defamation trial last year, former local news anchor Carol Martin testified that she remembered E. Jean Carroll confiding in her soon after the alleged assault by Donald Trump in the mid-1990s and that she told Carroll not to go public.

Martin said she didn’t remember when exactly it happened, but she knew it was some time while the two were working at the same cable network between 1994 and 1996.

By Martin’s account, the two friends had finished taping their respective shows and Carroll asked if she could come over to Martin’s home near the studio. They talked in her kitchen for about an hour, Martin testified, and Carroll was “frenzied.”

Carroll’s “effect was anxious and excitable, but she can be that way sometimes so that part wasn’t as different but what she was saying didn’t make any sense at first.” The conversation was not linear, Carroll started her account saying, “You won’t believe what happened to me the other night,” Martin recalled.

“And I didn’t know what to expect,” Martin said she felt at the time. Carroll repeatedly said, “Trump attacked me,” according to Martin.

“I think she said, ‘he pinned me’ and I still didn’t know what she meant,” Martin testified.

Martin testified that she told Carroll she shouldn’t tell anyone her story.

“Because it was Donald Trump and he had a lot of attorneys and I thought he would bury her is what I told her,” Martin said.

“I have questioned myself more times than not over the years. I am not proud that that’s what I told her in truth but she didn’t contest,” Martin added.

During cross-examination, Trump attorney Joe Tacopina read through a series of messages Martin has sent friends, many to Carroll, speaking negatively about Trump for years since he first ran for the presidency. Martin testified that as “very liberal feminist women,” they frequently discussed politics including their dislike for Trump. “We would often talk about ways to change the climate or work on issues of interest to us,” Martin testified.

Read more about her testimony in the last trial.

Former President Donald Trump has begun his defense, calling former local news anchor Carol Martin to the stand.

Martin previously testified on E. Jean Carroll’s behalf in the first trial, recalling how Carroll confided in her about the alleged sexual assault by Trump shortly after it happened.

Alina Habba, one of Trump’s defense attorneys, asked the judge to throw the case out, arguing E. Jean Carroll failed to establish any causal link between her damages claim and Trump’s statements.

Judge Lewis Kaplan cut Habba off, asking her whether the point of her request is that there is insufficient causation. She replied yes and was allowed to continue her argument for the record.

The judge denied the request.

Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll have rested her case against Donald Trump in the civil trial to determine how much in damages, if any, he will have to pay the former magazine columnist for his 2019 defamatory statements following her sex assault allegations.

The plaintiffs called three witnesses including Carroll who testified last week while Donald Trump sat at the defense table making audible comments for which he was admonished by the judge.

Carroll is seeking at least $10 million in damages for the 2019 defamatory statements.

In a separate trial last year, a jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation similar statements he made in 2022. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

E. Jean Carroll’s attorneys played a series of clips from earlier depositions and media statements by Trump in which he disparages Carroll as “sick,” threatens to sue her attorney, and rants about the “hoaxes” that have been played on him. 

“This is a hoax,” Trump said during a deposition in this case from October, 2022. “This ridiculous situation that we’re doing right here. She’s a liar and she’s a sick person, in my opinion, really sick.”

Another clip from the same deposition showed Trump saying that he looks forward to suing Carroll and her lawyer. 

Court is in a brief break. 

E. Jean Carroll’s attorneys played videos for the jury in which Trump attested to his personal wealth.

One video came from an April 13 deposition in a separate civil fraud case over Trump’s alleged inflation of the value of his New York properties and other assets.

And in a deposition video from this case, one of Carroll’s attorneys asked Trump whether it was fair to call him a “real estate tycoon” in the 1990s, to which he answered yes.

Carroll’s lawyers also played a clip from Trump’s statement last week aired by the right-wing news outlet NewsMax, in which he reiterated his claim that he had never met Carroll prior to her taking him to court for allegedly raping and defaming her.

An earlier civil trial found Trump liable for sexual assault and defamation. 

As the trial that will decide how much money in damages Donald Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll continues in New York this morning, in a Washington federal courtroom, Trump’s former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is being sentenced for contempt of Congress.

Navarro defied a subpoena related to the congressional investigation into the January 6, 2021, US Capitol attack.

He was convicted on two counts of contempt of Congress in September for not complying with a subpoena from the House select committee that investigated the attack.

Each count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of one month in prison, but prosecutors have asked US District Judge Amit Mehta to sentence Navarro to six months for each count – running concurrently – and fine him $200,000.

Former Elle editor Robbie Myers praised E. Jean Carroll as an employee, calling her an accomplished and popular “truth teller” who was essential to the magazine’s brand.

Myers, the editor-in-chief for Elle for 17 years, said she gave Carroll a raise during her tenure.

Myers also testified she met Donald Trump in 2012 or 2013 when she appeared on “The Celebrity Apprentice” reality TV show.

Trump “was kind and friendly” and showed her around his offices during downtime while they were shooting.

Under questioning from Carroll’s attorney, Myers said she was a registered Democrat and never voted for Trump. Trump’s lawyer asked Myers if she’ll vote for Trump in the upcoming election. She declined to answer saying she didn’t think she had to share what she planned to do.

Two of the nine jurors in the defamation trial are socially distancing in the courtroom, Judge Lewis Kaplan announced as the trial resumed this morning.

The trial was delayed on Monday morning due to a sick juror and did not resume until today.

Robbie Myers testifies on January 25, in this courtroom sketch.

Robbie Myers, E. Jean Carroll’s longtime boss at Elle magazine, has taken the stand.

Myers is a fixture in New York media, having begun her career at Rolling Stone in the 1980s, followed by positions at Interview, where she worked for Andy Warhol, Seventeen and InStyle, according to a 2017 New York Times profile.

She became the editor-in-chief of Elle in 2000, and ran the magazine until 2017.

The civil defamation trial of former President Donald Trump resumed Thursday morning for the first action since last week.

E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim. She is seeking more than $10 million in damages.

In a separate trial last year, a civil jury found Trump sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her in 2022 statements, and the judge previously ruled that verdict would carry over to this defamation trial.

E. Jean Carroll arrives at federal court in Manhattan, New York, on January 25.

E. Jean Carroll and former President Donald Trump have both arrived at the federal courthouse in Manhattan for the resumption of the civil defamation trial.

This is the first day back in court since it was adjourned Monday after a juror went home sick.

Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in New Hampshire on January 22.

E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation trial against Donald Trump will resume today at 9:30 a.m. ET. 

The former president is expected to be present at court. His attorneys said in court Monday he wants to testify, but that has still not been confirmed.

On Monday, the judge adjourned the trial due to a sick juror. The jury has not heard proceedings since last Thursday.

More about the case: Carroll, a former magazine columnist, alleged Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim. In a separate trial last year, a civil jury found Trump sexually assaulted Carroll and defamed her in 2022 statements, and the judge previously ruled that verdict would carry over to this defamation trial.

E. Jean Carroll leaves Manhattan federal court in New York on January 22.

E. Jean Carroll has to prove that she is entitled to damages from Donald Trump for defamation by a preponderance of the evidence, a standard used in civil cases that’s lower than what’s required in criminal trials.

That evidence standard was used in Carroll’s civil defamation case last year, in which a jury found that Carroll proved Trump had sexually abused and defamed her by a preponderance of the evidence, but that she did not prove Trump had raped her, as that crime is narrowly defined by New York’s criminal laws. Trump has appealed the verdict.

Carroll’s case last year, in which she was awarded $5 million for battery and defamation, focused on comments Trump made about Carroll in 2022. The current case is about Trump’s statements when he was president in 2019. Carroll is seeking over $10 million in damages.

After the jury was sworn in, Judge Lewis Kaplan compared the preponderance standard in the case to a scale.

“To put it differently, if you were to put the plaintiff’s and the defendant’s evidence on opposite sides of metaphorical scales, the plaintiff has the burden to make the scales tip, even if only slightly, in the plaintiff’s favor,” the judge continued. “If they tip slightly for the plaintiff or heavily for the plaintiff, then the plaintiff has prevailed by a preponderance of the evidence. If they tip even slightly for the defendant or heavily for the defendant, then the defendant prevails on that issue.”

Carroll testified at the trial last week that Trump’s statements after she went public about his allegedly having sexually assaulted her shattered her reputation and led to an onslaught of threatening messages.

Keep reading here about Carroll’s case against Trump.

A courtroom sketch shows E. Jean Carroll testifying on the witness stand in Federal Court, in New York, on Wednesday, January 17.

The trial that will decide how much money in damages Donald Trump must pay E. Jean Carroll resumes later this morning.

Carroll in her testimony last week recounted how Trump’s 2019 statements about her led to threatening messages and upended her sense of safety.

The attacks started “instantaneously,” Carroll said as she described several safety precautions she’s taken out of fear due to the threatening messages, including hiring security at both trials and keeping a gun at her bedside. “I bought bullets for the gun I had inherited from my father,” Carroll said.

Carroll’s voice broke as she described another violent message she received after the trial last year.

She said she was attacked on Twitter, Facebook, on new blogs and messages. “As I said, it was a new world. I had left the world of facts, a lovely world, and I was living in a new universe,” she said.

During cross-examination, Carroll testified there were about five hours between when her 2019 story published and when Trump made a statement denying the allegations, in response to questioning from Trump’s attorney Alina Habba. Carroll confirmed she received harassing social media messages before Trump made any statements.

Habba also pressed Carroll about deleting or removing the threatening messages when she received them, making a motion for a mistrial because of the deleted messages, which was promptly denied by Judge Lewis Kaplan. Habba argued in her opening statement last week that Carroll’s story fueled the harassment, not Trump’s denials.