The jury in the civil battery and defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump is scheduled to retire to consider the verdict today.
Last Thursday, while on a golf trip to Ireland, Trump said that he would be cutting short his trip and returning to the US so as to ‘confront’ his rape accuser at his trial, even though he had not been on the original witness list.
Trump told reporters last week he would “probably attend” the trial.
“I’m going back to New York. I was falsely accused by this woman, I have no idea who she is – it’s ridiculous,” he claimed. “I’ll be going back early because a woman made a claim that is totally false, it’s fake,” he added.
Trump also called the case a “political attack” and claimed the judge was “extremely hostile” and “doesn’t like me very much.”
But shortly after that, his lawyer Joe Tacopina said in court that they were resting their case and usually that closes the door to any more witnesses. I think Trump made his statement as an act of bravado, never intending to carry it out, but designed to show his confidence and also so that when the judge refused to allow him to testify, he could once again claim that the judge was biased against him.
But US district judge Lewis Kaplan judge called his bluff and said that he would leave the window open until Sunday evening for Tacopina to file a request for Trump to appear. But of course Trump chickened out, no such request was made, and he did not testify.
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