Former President Donald Trump stated that he intends to “confront” a sexual assault accuser in a courtroom presided over by a “extremely hostile” judge in his hometown.
During interaction with the media on his golf course in Ireland, Trump lashed out at E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her decades ago and then filed a civil lawsuit against him, alleging he defamed her by branding her a liar.
“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,” she said when she took the stand on Wednesday.
Mediate added: “In the days before the trial started, Trump posted insults on social media that did not amuse Judge Lewis 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,” Kaplan said in response, according to Raw Story, adding that Trump “may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability. … And I think you know what I mean.”
Trump told reporters in Ireland that he intended to “confront” Carroll, whom he described as a “disgrace,” and Kaplan, whom he described as “extremely hostile.”
“I have to leave Ireland and I have to leave Scotland where I have great properties. I have to leave early. I don’t have to, but I choose to,” he said.
“Will you attend the trial? Mr. President, I’m probably attending and I probably will and I think its a disgrace. It’s a disgrace that it’s allowed to happen against a rich guy or in my case, against a famous, rich and political person that’s leading the polls by 40 points,” he continued.
“And I have to go back for a woman that made a false accusation about me, and I have a judge who is extremely hostile and I’m going to go back and I’m going to confront this. But this woman is a disgrace and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen in our country. You go to work,” he added.
Trump requested a trial delay in the defamation and battery case filed by Carroll last month, citing the intense media coverage of his Manhattan indictment and the need for a “cooling off” period.
The trial was scheduled to begin on April 25, but he requested a one-month postponement. Kaplan, a senior federal judge in the Southern District of New York appointed by President Bill Clinton in 1994, denied the request, stating, “There is no justification for an adjournment. This case has nothing to do with the state prosecution.”
“Developments in at least one of these matters, as well as actions and statements by Mr. Trump in relation to any, may well give rise to intense publicity that, in some respects, Mr. Trump might claim to be prejudicial in this case,” Kaplan noted. “Mr. Trump’s suggestion that a one-month trial postponement, in this case, would ensure the absence of any such developments in the period immediately preceding jury selection is not realistic.”
In early April, it was disclosed that Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and Democratic megadonor, was secretly funding Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump.
According to court documents, co-founder of LinkedIn and billionaire Hoffman has been financing Carroll’s case in secret, as reported by The Daily Beast.
The revelations were made during a heated exchange of correspondence between the attorneys for Carroll and Trump, who are presently debating whether to postpone the two-week trial.
It is uncertain if Hoffman’s financial support will have any bearing on the outcome of the case, but the revelation of the previously undisclosed funding is likely to fuel Trump’s ongoing claims that wealthy Democrats are working behind the scenes to undermine him, the outlet noted further.
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