


A Manhattan federal judge blasted Donald Trump’s “entirely inappropriate” posts on Truth Social Wednesday — as witness testimony began in E. Jean Carroll’s civil rape case against the former president.
Trump, 76, took to his social media platform about an hour before the second day of trial began, claiming Carroll’s case was “a made up SCAM” and accusing her lawyers of being “political operatives.”
Advertisement
He also called for the dress the former advice columnist wore the day of the alleged rape to be brought into the trial — something that Carroll sought to do early on in the case to compare the garment against Trump’s DNA.
Judge Lewis Kaplan — who previously ruled that nothing about Trump’s DNA would come into trial — grilled the ex-president’s lawyer about the post before the jury was brought in, warning that the message appeared to be meant for the panel.
“Your client is basically endeavoring to speak to his public, but more troublesome, to the jury in this case,” Kaplan said.
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina brought up what he claimed to be a leak to the press from Carroll’s side — but Kaplan shut the argument down saying, “What you are trying to do is get away from a statement by your client that on the face of it seems entirely inappropriate.”
Advertisement
Tacopina eventually agreed to speak with Trump and “ask him to refrain from any further posts regarding this case.”
Still, the judge cautioned Tacopina that Trump could be adding on even more legal troubles for himself.
“We are getting into an area, conceivably, in which your client may or may not be tampering with a new source of potential liability and I think you know what I mean,” Kaplan warned.
Advertisement
The issues of Trump’s posts was raised by Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan who told the judge: “the defendant in this case went on Truth Social and made a lengthy statement which is on its face not truthful.”
Trump has not come to court for the first two days of trial.
In a second Truth Social post Wednesday morning, Trump wrote: “They got caught lying! The Miss Bergdorf Goodman case is financed by a big political donor that they tried to hide. Does anybody believe that I would take a then almost 60 year old woman that I didn’t know, from the front door of a very crowded department store, (with me being very well known, to put it mildly!), into a tiny dressing room, and …. her. She didn’t scream? There are no witnesses? Nobody saw this? She never made a police complaint? If I was seen there with a woman-BIG PRESS. SCAM!”
Advertisement
Carroll was around 50 at the time of the alleged attack in the spring of 1996 when she claims she bumped into Trump at Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue where the pair joked before things took a turn in the sixth floor fitting room.
Her attorneys called their first witness Wednesday, and Carroll then took the stand to describe the alleged attack.
“He lied and shattered my reputation and I’m here to get my life back,” she told the court.
One of Carroll’s lawyers, Shawn Crowley, told jurors during opening arguments Tuesday that Trump “slammed” against Carroll inside a fitting room before allegedly raping her.
Carroll, 79, sued the 45th President for the alleged attack and then for allegedly defaming her by denying her claims and saying he didn’t even know her when she came forward with the accusations in 2019.