JUST IN: Trump Requests Mistrial in E. Jean Carroll Defamation Suit Over Judge’s ‘Unfair and Prejudicial’ Rulings

Lawyers representing former President Donald Trump have asked the judge overseeing a defamation suit to declare a mistrial in his civil battery and defamation case.

Joe Tacopina filed a letter overnight arguing that Judge Lewis Kaplan has made “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” against him and asked the judge to “correct the record for every instance in which the Court has mischaracterized the facts of this case to the jury” or provide him greater leeway in cross-examining E. Jean Carroll.

CNN’s Kara Scannell reports:

“Here, despite the fact trial testimony has been underway for only two days, the proceedings are already replete with numerous explains of Defendant’s unfair treatment by the Court, most of which has been witnessed by the Jury,” the letter said.

Carroll sued Trump, alleging he raped her in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then defamed her when he denied her claim, said she wasn’t his type and suggested she made up the story to boost sales of her book. Carroll will be on the stand Monday for a second day of cross-examination by Tacopina. Trump has denied any wrongdoing.

Among the issues raised by Tacopina are the judge’s ruling restricting Tacopina from asking Carroll additional questions about any efforts Carroll made to try to obtain security camera footage from the department store, “expressing a corroborative view” that there was no one on the sixth floor of the department store at the time of the alleged assault, and calling certain lines of the defense attorney’s questioning “argumentative” in front of the jury.

In an email to journalists sent last week, ex-President Donald Trump posted an attack on E. Jean Carroll that questioned the rape allegations he’s now on trial for.

The trial began this week in the defamation suit Carroll filed in 2019 after Trump accused her of lying about being raped by him. Carroll herself took the stand Wednesday and began with a powerful statement: “I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen; he lied. He shattered my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back.”

In the days before the trial started, Trump posted insults on social media that did not amuse Judge Kaplan, to say the least. Tacopina told the court he would “try to address” the public postings about the case “with my client.”

“Well, I hope you’re more successful,” Judge Kaplan responded. He continued that Trump “may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability. … And I think you know what I mean.”