The jury in Donald Trump’s civil defamation trial involving E. Jean Carroll will likely “scratch its head” at a “sneaky” move from the former president’s attorney Alina Habba, predicted lawyer and legal analyst Harry Litman on Thursday.
Trump provided roughly three minutes of testimony on Thursday as the trial involving Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist who has accused him of assaulting her in a Manhattan department store changing room in the mid-1990s, is set to a come to a close on Friday.
A New York City jury last May found Trump liable and ordered him to pay $5 million in damages for sexual abuse and defamation against Carroll, whose attorneys are now seeking at least $10 million in additional damages after the former president said she was lying about her accusations, he has no idea who Carroll is and she was not his “type.” Trump, meanwhile, has denied any wrongdoing in the case.
Litman, who previously served as a U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania and deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice (DOJ), said one move from Habba may not resonate with the jury.
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He discussed the testimony in a Thursday YouTube video titled, “Trump’s next-to-nothing NON-TESTIMONY” in which he detailed a discussion between Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing the civil case, and counsel for Trump and Carroll ahead of the former president’s testimony.
During that discussion Habba likely said, “probably at Trump’s insistence” that he wants to be able to explain his intent, according to Litman. Ultimately, Kaplan allowed him to say he stands by his deposition, which Litman said was a “smidgen more than he needed to” give Trump.
Habba agreed that Trump would be allowed to say this, but nothing more.
In front of the jury, however, she pushed on the intent issue a bit more, with Kaplan suggesting she may have done so “maybe because she’s being a little sneaky.” During the testimony, Trump said Carroll “said something I considered a false accusation,” prompting an objection from Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan that was sustained by Kaplan.
In his video, Litman said the exchange is unlikely to win over the jury.
“I think its jury will mainly scratch its head at this whole two minute theater piece, which is what it was,” Litman said. “I don’t think it will impress them very much. The only substance you can take from it is that he stands by his deposition. What else are you supposed to think about it at this point? And that maybe something went on behind the scenes before but we’re not exactly sure what it is. I think it will just kind of get lost in the overall run of the trial.”
Newsweek reached out to Habba’s law firm for comment via email.
The trial, which began last week and was delayed after Habba asked for an adjournment because her parents were exposed to COVID-19, is set to head to closing arguments on Friday.
Meanwhile, reactions from legal experts poured in following Trump’s testimony. Former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, a frequent critic of Trump, wrote that it “probably went better than expected” in her Civil Discourse blog.
“It’s unlikely that it will exert much influence on the jury either way,” she wrote. “They heard Trump blurt out his denial of Carroll’s accusation, but they already knew he denied them. Carroll’s lawyers played tapes of Trump saying they weren’t true, including some statements he made while the trial was ongoing. They will use that to argue for punitive damages in an amount high enough to make him stop.”
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