Donald Trump’s motions for a mistrial in the defamation case brought against him by the writer E Jean Carroll have been rejected by a federal judge, who added that the former president’s issues with the verdict had no “merit”.
In an order filed on Wednesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan said the motion for a mistrial “made no sense” and that approving it “would have been entirely pointless”. Trump’s lawyers had previously called for a mistrial in the middle of their cross-examination of Carroll, which the judge denied at the time, instructing the jury to disregard the counsel’s remarks. He reiterated his decision and sharply criticized the efforts of Trump’s attorney in the written order this week.
