Judge rejects Trump’s request for mistrial in rape and battery lawsuit

The judge presiding over a rape and defamation case against Donald Trump has dismissed his request for a mistrial, after an attorney for the former president accused the judge of making “pervasive unfair and prejudicial rulings.”

Columnist E. Jean Carroll is suing Trump, accusing him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996, and then undermining her credibility and career by lying about it online. Trump has denied the allegations.

Carroll testified last week that “Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He [Trump] shattered my reputation.”

In a letter filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina asked that the US District Judge Lewis Kaplan dismiss the lawsuit.

In the 18-page letter, Tacopina accused Kaplan of having “bolstered” Carroll’s testimony by improperly sustaining objections to some of Tacopina’s questions of Carroll, and said a potential upcoming witness should be barred from testifying.

The judge denied the motion for a mistrial before testimony resumed on Monday.

Tacopina said Kaplan should have let him question Carroll about why she did not seek security camera footage of the alleged rape, and why she did not tell police.

He also challenged Kaplan’s handling outside jurors’ presence of a Twitter post by Trump’s son Eric discussing how LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman was helping fund her case.

Tacopina said Kaplan should correct the record and give him more freedom to cross-examine Carroll and her witnesses.

Several women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. He has constantly rejected the allegations.

Trump, who is running for the White House again in 2024 and is seen by many as the presumptive Republican nominee, said on Monday that his campaign is “on my mind”, stressing that a victory for him would make America “greater than ever before.”