For disruptive behavior: judge threatens Trump with expulsion from Switzerland in the minefield of the war in Ukraine

The judge in the second defamation trial against Donald Trump in New York has threatened to bar the ex-president from the courtroom due to numerous disruptions. “Mr. Trump has a right to be here. This right may be forfeited if he disrupts business – and what has been reported to me is part of that,” Judge Lewis Kaplan said in the Manhattan courtroom on Wednesday (local time), according to consistent media reports. “And if he ignores the court’s instructions – Mr. Trump, I hope I don’t have to exclude you from the trial. I understand you would probably like that.”

Trump reportedly responded, “I would love that, I would love that.” Judge Kaplan then said, “I know that because you just can’t control yourself under these circumstances, you just can’t.” Earlier, Trump repeatedly shook his head and made derogatory comments during American author E. Jean Carroll’s testimony against him. “This is fraud,” he is said to have said, for example.

In her statement, Carrol spoke about, among other things, the threats she receives from Trump supporters and the fear she lives with every day since she made public her allegations against the former US president. After the court day ended, Trump again claimed that he did not know Carrol at all before her accusations. He also attacked the judge, describing him as a “radical Trump hater.”

This is Carroll’s second trial against Trump. At the end of the first, a New York jury found proven in May that Trump had assaulted Carroll in a luxury New York department store in 1996, sexually assaulted him and later defamed him. The jury then awarded the writer a compensation of five million dollars (approximately 4.65 million euros).

Before the second trial began, a judge had ruled that Trump’s other comments were defamatory. The jury now only has to decide on the amount of damages that the ex-president must pay to the woman. Carroll is asking for more than $10 million.

Trump is considered the Republicans’ most promising candidate in November’s presidential election. However, he is currently dealing with the courts in many different cases. The 77-year-old often uses the court dates as a kind of election campaign event, which has already earned him criticism from several judges. (sda/dpa)