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Trump is due to face a federal jury in New York this week to
determine how much he should pay the writer E. Jean Carroll for
defaming her in 2019, one of a string of legal entanglements he
is contending with as primary elections for the 2024 Republican
nomination, which the former president is seeking, get under
way.
A jury last year found in a civil case that Trump had sexually
abused Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her in 2022 by
calling her a liar.
Multiple courts have sought to require Trump not to stray into
diatribes and speechmaking.
Lawyers for Carroll last week argued that, should Trump decide
to testify in his own defense, he should be required to state
out of the jury's presence that he understands he assaulted her
and should be warned against disobeying court orders limiting
what he can say.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan this month ruled that the
former president may not tell the jury he did not rape Kaplan.
"[I]t would be a manifest injustice to require President Trump
to proffer his guilt, under oath, for acts that he maintains did
not occur" and which were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt,
attorney Alina Habba wrote.
Habba also argued that, despite pre-set limits on his testimony,
Trump would be free to testify about the context in which he
made his remarks about Carroll as evidence showing whether he
did so with hatred or ill will.
"He can do this without opining on the actual underlying
events," she wrote.
(Reporting by Douglas Gillison; Editing by Mark Porter)
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