As his accuser took the witness stand again, former President Donald Trump‘s motion to declare a mistrial in his civil rape case was rejected.
On Monday morning, US District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the motion to throw out the lawsuit filed by columnist E Jean Carroll. Trump’s attorney Tacopina said that Kaplan had rendered “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings” against his client.
Tacopina requested Kaplan to alternatively “correct the record for each and every instance in which the Court has mischaracterized the facts of this case to the Jury” in a letter that was submitted earlier in the day. Tacopina pleaded with the judge to “give the Defendant’s counsel more freedom to cross-examine Plaintiff and her witnesses.”
In addition, Tacopina wrote that his questions to Carroll that the judge labeled ‘argumentative’ were actually ‘well-established and accepted’ ways to conduct cross-examination.
Carroll returned to the stand just after Kaplan denied the motion for a mistrial. It is her third day testifying and second day facing cross-examination. She told Tacopina that she was born in 1943 and is ‘a member of the silent generation’.
‘Women like me were taught and trained to keep our chins up and to not complain,’ said Carroll.
Tacopina asked Carroll why she decided to sue Trump and not former CBS chairman and CEO Les Moonves, whom she alleges sexually assaulting her in an elevator. Carroll unveiled accusations against Trump and Moonves in her 2019 book. Carroll responded that Trump, whom she claims raped her in a department store dressing room, called her a ‘scam’ while Moonvoes did not.
‘He didn’t call me names,’ Carroll said on Moonves. ‘He didn’t grind my face into the mud like Donald Trump did.’
Carroll in her sexual assault and defamation suit is seeking unspecified damages and for Trump to retract his comments.
Trump has not yet appeared in court for the trial and is not required to.