Jane Rosenberg/Reuters
- Donald Trump walked out of court Friday during closing arguments in the E. Jean Carroll trial.
- The former president left as Carroll's attorney argued that Trump doesn't respect the jury.
- "The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom," the judge said.
Donald Trump walked out of a Manhattan federal courtroom in the middle of closing arguments in the second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial on Friday.
Trump abruptly got up and left as Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, argued in her closing statements that Trump doesn't respect the jury.
"Donald Trump engaged in the very same defamation after the trial," Kaplan said, indicating that Trump continues to defame her writer client even after Carroll's first defamation trial against Trump.
"He continued to defame Ms. Carroll even as this trial was ongoing," Kaplan told the jury.
Kaplan told the jurors just moments before Trump exited the courtroom that the former president has already been found liable for defaming Carroll and should be held responsible for not listening to a previous jury verdict.
As Trump left, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said, "The record will reflect that Mr. Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom."
Earlier Friday, the judge and Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, got into a heated exchange and the judge threatened to jail her.
"Ms. Habba, you are on the verge of spending some time in the lockout. No, sit down," Lewis Kaplan told Habba after she tried to get the judge to allow her to display certain tweets during her closing statements.
Trump, later Friday, once again took to his social media platform, Truth Social, bashing the defamation trial, as well as President Joe Biden, and calling Carroll's allegations that he sexually assaulted her a "hoax."
"Our Legal System is in shambles!" read Trump's post. "This is another Biden Demanded Witch Hunt against his Political Opponent, funded and managed by Radical Left Democrats. The Courts are totally stacked against me, have never been used against a Political Opponent, like this, but in the end, we will win it all, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!"
Carroll attorney Joshua Matz said in the courtroom on Thursday that Trump has trash-talked Carroll "well over a hundreds times" in statements and on social media during the trial.
Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, briefly took the witness stand in the case on Thursday. He was on the stand for only about three minutes, including a minute or so of cross-examination and redirect testimony.
Last year, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll in a New York City department store in the 1990s, and that he defamed her by denying it. The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.
This trial concerns additional defamation damages for two statements Trump made in 2019, while he was president, disparaging Carroll by calling her a liar and insulting her appearance.