(ConservativeSense.com) – A federal judge slammed one of former President Donald Trump’s defense attorneys multiple times during Trump’s ongoing civil defamation trial.Aline Habba was rebuked 14 times by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan over a number of days during Trump’s civil defamation trial proceedings. On Thursday, Jan. 18, columnist E. Jean Carroll underwent cross-examination by Habba, who tried to prove the writer benefited from a book detailing an alleged rape by the former president. Carroll claims the incident took place in the 1990s in a department store.
The current trial against Trump will determine if he owes Carroll any damages for remarks he made while he was the sitting president.
Habba questioned Carroll about her Substack writing profile and asked her how much money she pulls in as a writer as well as how many subscribers follow the blog. Kaplan soon became frustrated with the defense attorney, later accusing Habba of “repetitious” questioning, specifically for reciting verbatim Twitter posts written by Carroll in 2019. Habba was attempting to prove that since making her rape allegations against the former president, Carroll has become more famous and her social media following has grown “exponentially.”
Carroll responded to Habba and said that she’s “been invited to two parties,” admitting, tongue-in-cheek, that she’s “more well known” now while also “hated by a lot more people.”
Trump was present in court during the first two days and also bickered with the judge. He missed the third day to attend the funeral of Amalija Knavs, his mother-in-law who died on Jan. 9 at the age of 78.
Ty Cobb, a former attorney for the White House, appeared on CNN and criticized Habba’s performance in court. Cobb called the incident “embarrassing” and accused the defense attorney of doing a “minor league job” introducing evidence. He added that the judge was being “very patient” with Habba.
Last year in May, in the very same courtroom, Carroll was awarded $5 million in damages after a judge ruled that Trump assaulted her at a store in New York City in 1996 and that he later defamed her in 2022.
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