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Judge Smacks Down Trump in Scathing Memo: Show Up for Trial or Don’t, but Don’t Try to Blame Anything on the Court
Senior U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan appears to be losing patience with Donald Trump and the attorney defending the ex-president in a defamation rape case brought by journalist E. Jean Carroll.
Trump, through his lawyer Joe Tacopina, was supposed to inform the judge by Thursday whether or not he would be showing up at trial, which begins next week. Trump is not being called as a witness by Carroll’s attorneys, nor is he legally required to appear or attend.
But Judge Kaplan needs to know if Trump will show, for reasons including security arrangements for the ex-president.
Tacopina appears to have tried to essentially get an excused absence note from Judge Kaplan, so he could blame his anticipated non-appearance on the Court rather than on the ex-president, but Kaplan wasn’t having it.
“Mr. Trump’s lead counsel expresses Mr. Trump’s alleged desire to testify at trial but seeks an order from the Court excusing his presence unless either party calls him as a witness and, in the event he does not testify, instructing the jury that his ‘absence . .. by design, avoids the logistical burdens that his presence, as the former president, would cause the courthouse and New York City,'” Judge Kaplan writes in a scathing memorandum (below).
“First, the Court neither excuses nor declines to excuse Mr. Trump from attending the trial or from testifying in this case,” Kaplan makes clear.
“Mr. Trump is under no legal obligation to be present or to testify. The plaintiff [Carroll] has made clear that she does not intend to call him as a witness. The decision whether to attend or to testify is his alone to make. There is nothing for the Court to excuse.”
“Second, the Court notes but does not accept Mr. Trump’s counsel’s claims concerning alleged burdens on the courthouse or the City were Mr. Trump to attend or testify,” Kaplan adds, making clear Trump cannot get away with claiming he did not attend or testify as a courtesy to the Court.
And Kaplan reiterates his confidence in all the entities that exist to ensure the ex-president’s safety and security.
“Mr. Trump is entitled by law to the protection of the United States Secret Service, which he now has enjoyed as a former president for more than two years. He has a right to testify in this case. As it would do for any person with business before the Court, the Court will do everything within its power to enable Mr. Trump to exercise that right. Moreover, it is entirely confident that the United States Marshals Service and the City of New York will do their parts in securing that right to Mr. Trump, just as they repeatedly have done in other cases involving security concerns.”
Judge Kaplan then makes clear he’s very aware of Trump’s schedule, writing, “the Court notes from Mr. Trump’s campaign web site and media reports that he announced earlier this week that he will speak at a campaign event in New Hampshire on April 27, 2023, the third day of the scheduled trial in this case.”
“If the Secret Service can protect him at that event, certainly the Secret Service, the Marshals Service, and the City of New
York can see to his security in this very secure federal courthouse.”
Kaplan also points out that Trump has had months to decide – and points out his recent federal indictment.
“Mr. Trump has been on notice of the April 25 trial date in this case since on or about February 7, 2023,” he writes. “There has been quite ample time within which to make whatever logistical arrangements should be made for his attendance, and certainly quite a bit more time than the five or six days between his recent indictment on state criminal charges and his arraignment on that indictment approximately one block from the location of the trial of this case.”
“The question of the requested jury instruction is premature. Mr. Trump is free to attend, to testify, or both. He is free also to do none of those things. Should he elect not to appear or testify, his counsel may renew the request.”
Kaplan also issues a warning: “there shall be no reference by counsel for Mr. Trump in the presence of the jury panel or the trial jury to Mr. Trump’s alleged desire to testify or to the burdens that any absence on his part allegedly might spare, or might have spared, the Court or the City of New York.”
MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin points to Tacopina’s Thursday afternoon response to Judge Kaplan.
“While Trump was ordered to tell Judge Kaplan today whether he intends to attend part or all of the Carroll trial,” she writes, “he won’t give the judge a straight answer. (And if you’re not a lawyer, let me translate: That’s not going to go over well. At all.)”
Read Judge Kaplan’s memo below or at this link.
NEW: SDNY Judge Lew Kaplan tells Trump he won’t tell the jury Trump is “excused” from attending the E. Jean Carroll trial. Trump is neither obligated to attend in the first place nor are Trump, the Secret Service, & U.S. Marshals unable to plan for and handle his attendance. 1/ pic.twitter.com/bEwUHf5ZGY
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) April 20, 2023
Image via Shutterstock
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
