Trump testifies in E. Jean Carroll civil defamation trial

Former President Donald Trump spent less than three minutes on the witness stand on Thursday. His testimony still managed to draw a rebuke from U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who ordered jurors to disregard comments Trump made arguing his innocence against allegations brought against him. Trump stated that former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll’s allegations that he sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1996 were “false.” Kaplan ordered the jury to disregard that comment.

Why did the jury have to disregard what he said? A jury last year had already ruled that Trump had sexually abused Carroll in that Manhattan dressing room and that he defamed her with his denials of her allegations afterward. The justice system has tasked the jury in this week’s trial with merely deciding how much Trump should pay Carroll for that defamation.

Dig deeper: Read Mary Jackson and Carolina Lumetta’s report in WORLD Magazine about why Christians are supporting former President Donald Trump in the 2024 election.