Former President Donald Trump fired off a series of posts complaining about the judge overseeing his defamation case after he was nearly kicked out of court on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing writer E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump, warned the former president that he could be excluded from the trial after he grumbled so loudly the jury could hear. “I would love it,” Trump replied.
“I feel an obligation to be at every moment of this ridiculous trial because we have a seething and hostile Clinton-appointed Judge, Lewis Kaplan, who suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Trump wrote on Truth Social following the exchange, calling the judge “abusive” and “rude” among other things. “In the first trial, with the same Judge, where I was asked not to go by my lawyers because it was ‘beneath me as a former President of the United States,’ he was reported to have been extraordinarily hostile to our side. But I should have gone, if for no other reason than to witness and speak up against the abuse carried out by this Judge.“
“The Judge in the Trial that I am attending today is a totally biased and hostile person,” Trump later wrote in another series of posts, arguing that Kaplan “should have recused himself” in both trials because of his “hatred of me.”
“The Judge suffers from Trump Derangement Syndrome as anyone can see from his last outburst against me in the Court. I did nothing wrong, except defend myself from false, malicious, and defamatory accusations,” Trump claimed, repeating his claims discrediting Carroll’s sexual assault allegation that a previous jury already found credible. “She was not damaged, I am the one who was damaged. It is impossible for me to get a fair trial in front of this Judge,” Trump fumed, demanding Kaplan “be sanctioned for his abuse of power.”
A jury last year found Trump liable of sexually assaulting Carroll and defaming her. Kaplan has already ruled that Trump defamed Carroll and the current trial is to determine the amount of damages he should pay the writer.
