A federal judge in New York denied a motion by Donald Trump’s attorneys to declare a mistrial in the civil battery and defamation lawsuit filed against the former president by Council columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The rejection came Monday, shortly after Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, filed a lawsuit 18-page letter US District Judge Lewis Kaplan accused of making “pervasive unfair and prejudicial decisions”.
Kaplan made no comment to explain his decision before allowing testimony to resume that morning. The New York Post reported.
Tacopina had requested that either a mistrial be declared or that the court “correct the records” for each case in which evidence was “misrepresented” to the New York jury. He also asked for more opportunities to cross-examine Carroll and her witnesses.
“Although testimony has only been in progress for two days, the trial here is already replete with numerous examples of the court’s unfair treatment of the defendant, most of which were witnessed by the jury,” the letter reads.
In his letter, Tacopina accused Kaplan of “supporting” Carroll’s testimony and argued that some of Trump’s team’s criticized cross-examination methods, which the judge called “argumentative,” are “well established and accepted.”
Tacopina was warned several times by the judge during his interrogation, the New York Times reports previously reported.
Carroll sued Trump, accusing him of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and then defaming her when she went public with her allegation. Trump has denied any wrongdoing, accusing her of fabricating it to boost sales of her book.
