Donald Trump’s defamation trial against E Jean Carroll resumes in New York today after a juror’s illness delayed proceedings. But the biggest question isn’t whether Trump will be found liable (he already was) or even how much he’ll have to pay her (it could be a lot). It’s how he’ll behave – and what, if anything, the judge can do to rein him in.
The last time Trump was in court, he grumbled so loudly from his seat that the judge, Lewis Kaplan, warned him he could be kicked out of court. “Mr Trump has the right to be present here. That right can be forfeited, and it can be forfeited if he is disruptive,” he said. “Mr Trump, I hope I don’t have to consider excluding you from the trial.”
“I would love it. I would love it,” Trump replied, apparently goading the judge to land on him hard so he could use it for political fodder.
It’s hard to think of how Trump could show more contempt (in the emotional, not legal, sense) for the multiple cases against him. He has repeatedly insulted and attacked prosecutors, judges and witnesses, and has clearly decided to make a spectacle of himself showing up unannounced when he isn’t required.
It’s not like the judges in his cases haven’t tried to curtail Trump’s court theatrics. But they are in a bind: treating Trump like any other defendant and enforcing order in their courtrooms plays into his claims of political persecution.
The judge in the New York business fraud case, Arthur Engoron, ordered Trump to pay a $110,000 fine back in 2022 for dragging his feet in responding to a subpoena from the New York state attorney general. (He paid, but appealed the ruling; the money is being held in escrow until a final ruling is made.)
Last October, Engoron placed a gag order on Trump barring him from attacking court staff, fined him $5,000 for violating it when Trump publicly disparaged a court staffer, and warned him that a future violation could result in jail time. Trump ignored the warning and did it again; Engoron responded with a $10,000 fine and a warning of, “Don’t do it again, or it will be worse” – but no jail time. The Trump team’s response was to put out a statement calling Engoron a “Democrat Judge, under control of radical [New York Democratic attorney general] Letitia James”.
In Trump’s pending January 6 case in DC, the judge, Tanya Chutkan, placed a gag order on Trump last fall barring him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses after he posted inflammatory statements that called special counsel Jack Smith “deranged” and suggested his former chief of staff and a possible witness in the trial, Mark Meadows, was a coward.
Trump has appealed the order, but the federal appeals court has declined to lift it. The latest decision came on Tuesday, when the full appeals court unanimously refused to reconsider Trump’s request. He’s likely to appeal that to the US supreme court. But so far, there have been few signs he can win this particular fight.
So the judges overseeing Trump’s cases are trying to keep him in line. He just keeps thumbing his nose at their orders – and financial penalties don’t seem to be deterring him.
His claims of a “witch-hunt” have become a staple in his campaign speeches. On Tuesday, during his victory speech after winning the New Hampshire primary, he said: “Just a little note to Nikki. She’s not going to win. But if she did, she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes.”
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Will this matter? Georgia edition
The Georgia case against Trump has taken a sharp turn into tabloid fodder after Trump co-defendant Michael Roman filed a motion earlier this month seeking the disqualification of the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis and Nathan Wade, an outside lawyer hired by Willis in 2021 to assist with the Trump case, alleging that the two were in a romantic relationship. Roman argues this creates a conflict of interest in the case because Wade used some of the $650,000 he has earned from his work to pay for vacations for the two of them. After Roman’s motion was filed, Wade’s divorce proceedings were unsealed by a judge on Monday, including records showing he had paid for flights for him and Willis to travel to Miami and San Francisco.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine spoke to local legal experts about the potential fallout.
“As a legal matter, I don’t see much of anything as of yet that would make me think that a disqualification is likely,” said Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who has closely followed the case. “In terms of the political bucket, it is an optics disaster, but it’s also been a lot of political malpractice from the office for not responding. So this drip, drip, drip is a problem.”
Willis and Wade have yet to confirm or deny the accusations. But the matter hangs over a case that has been seen as the strongest legal option to hold Trump accountable for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. If Willis is forced from the case, that would lead to a significant delay that could derail the investigation completely.
Elsewhere, Guardian US opinion columnist Sidney Blumenthal compares Trump’s recent all-caps declaration that he “MUST HAVE COMPLETE & TOTAL PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY” even for “EVENTS THAT ‘CROSS THE LINE’” to OJ Simpson’s If I Did It book – a tacit admission of guilt that belies his and his allies’ attempts to paint himself as something other than an insurrectionist.
Cronies and casualties
A new book reports that Trump ally and South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham threw Trump “under the bus” during private testimony to the grand jury investigating election subversion in Georgia – then gave Willis a hug afterwards, telling her his testimony had been “cathartic”.
The justice department said in a court filing last Thursday that it is seeking a six-month prison sentence for Peter Navarro, a close Trump ally and former administration official who was found guilty of criminal contempt of Congress last fall for ignoring a subpoena from the House January 6 committee.
Trump foe turned endorser and Florida Republican governor Ron DeSantis made clear that he would veto a bill from local Republican lawmakers that would have used taxpayer money to pay $5m of Trump’s legal bills.
What’s next
Today: the E Jean Carroll trial resumes in New York, and Trump may testify soon.
In the coming days: a judgment in the New York civil fraud trial is expected on the penalty Trump must pay for illegally inflating the value of business assets.
2 February: In the Georgia election interference case, Fani Willis must respond in writing to the allegations from Michael Roman’s attorneys. A hearing is scheduled for 15 February to consider the motion.
Calendar crunch
It’s looking more and more likely that Trump’s major criminal cases – the DC and Georgia prosecutions focusing on January 6, and the Florida case on his mishandling of classified documents – will continue to slip later in the calendar.
There’s no question that the 4 March start date judge Chutkan previously set for the DC case will be pushed back until an appeals court makes an order on Trump’s immunity claim. The only question is how long of a delay.
Meanwhile, in Georgia, where no trial date has been set by the judge, the drama around Willis’s personal life has made that case’s start date even more uncertain.
