Legal Expert on CNN Says Defamation Trial Judge ‘Has Marshals Lined Up’ To Drag Trump Out ‘If He Steps Out of Line’
Former prosecutor Nick Ackerman said Judge Lewis Kaplan will have U.S. Marshals “lined up” in case ex-President Donald Trump “steps out of line” during the defamation trial involving E. Jean Carroll, whom Trump sexually abused and defamed.
Trump is in court again Thursday for the latest trial for defaming E. Jean Carroll — the woman a court has already determined he defamed and sexually abused. The trial will decide how much money Trump will have to pay Carroll — who is seeking $10 million in damages — for defaming her while he was president. Trump has said he intends to testify.
On Thursday’s edition of CNN News Central, anchor John Berman discussed the strategy with a panel of Ackerman, ex-prosecutor Shan Wu, and CNN senior legal correspondent Paula Reid.
Reid said she thinks Trump will testify to be “a loud martyr,” as did Wu, while Ackerman warned Trump could find himself getting dragged out of court if he “steps one iota out of line”:
JOHN BERMAN: Batting cleanup. Paula Reid.
PAULA REID: I completely agree. The reason I think you’ll take the stand is not because it makes any legal sense whatsoever. It’s because it’s an opportunity to spar with the judge.
And one thing we saw when voters were coming out of the primary in New Hampshire is that people are buying this argument that he is a martyr, the victim of an unfair system.
Because they’re not paying attention to whether he actually followed the rules that the federal judge set out for the parameters of his damages testimony. They want to know that, oh, he was stopped! He was deprived of the opportunity to tell his side of the story, which, of course, he didn’t show up for the trial in the spring when they were actually talking about sexual abuse. It’s all about being a loud martyr for him politically, even if legally. That makes no sense. I don’t think he’s worried about the damages. He’s trying to regain the white House, and he truly believes that this is an opportunity to once again frame himself as a victim. So I think he will take it, but I think it will be brief. I don’t think the judge is going to allow it to go on for too long.
JOHN BERMAN: So. So to that point, the suggestion from Team Paul and Team Shan here is that Donald Trump will take the stand, not worried that this whole testimony will blow up, but hoping that it will blow up. How does that play out with Judge Kaplan?
SHAN WU: I think, he may be forced to make a proffer to the judge that the judge is satisfied this is going to at least have some relevance, to what they’re trying to determine. The proffer is really not worth, you know, the paper it’s written on because he’ll just blow through whatever the proffer was and do what he wants.
If the judge really constrains him, he has a number of ways to constrain him. He can interrupt him. He can tell the lawyers to try to control them. He could offer to even sanction him if he continues that. Or you could just stop him from testifying. So there’s ways for the judge to control Trump. And I think that the way it plays out is Trump just wants as much time as he can in the limelight there to be doing his thing, to be railing against the judge.
JOHN BERMAN: Nick.
NICK ACKERMAN: I think the judge has already got the marshals lined up. If this guy steps one iota out of line, he’s going to be taken out by the marshals.
JOHN BERMAN: And then who wins? Paula Reid.
PAULA REID: Former President Donald Trump.
Watch above via CNN News Central.
