Who would’ve ever guessed that Donald J. Trump wasn’t a man of his word?
Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said he would give the former president until 5 p.m. Sunday to make up his mind about testifying in his own defense after writer E. Jean Carroll accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s. But if Trump missed that deadline, Kaplan warned, “That ship will be irrevocably sailed.”
On Sunday, 5 p.m. came and went without Trump’s attorneys filing a motion to inform the court of any shift in plans, confirming that the entirety of Carroll’s civil case would play out without the accused once showing his face in the Manhattan courtroom.
Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, declined to comment on the matter to the Associated Press after the deadline passed.
Judge Kaplan’s extension on Thursday came after Trump brayed over a golf club to reporters in Ireland that he would “probably” cut his trip short to go back to New York and attend the trial.
“I’m going to go back, and I’m going to confront this—this woman is a disgrace and it shouldn’t be allowed to happen in our country,” he said. He repeatedly attacked Carroll as “fake” and Kaplan as “extremely hostile.”
When asked by the New York Daily News shortly after if Trump would be appearing in person, Tacopina replied, “No.”
Lawyers for Carroll, who alleges Trump raped her in a dressing room at New York’s Bergdorf Goodman Department Store just under 30 years ago, presented 11 witnesses over the course of two weeks. They rested their case late Thursday; almost immediately after, Tacopina rested his.
Kaplan, referencing Trump’s remarks in Ireland, expressed concerns that the jury needed to hear from Trump directly. “In the interests of justice,” he said, he would be willing to reopen the case briefly to allow the former president to testify.
“If he has second thoughts, I’ll at least consider it,” Kaplan said, setting the deadline.
Trump has denied all wrongdoing in the matter, saying at various points that Carroll was “not [his] type” and that he doesn’t know who she is. In an October deposition, parts of which were played by Carroll’s attorneys in court, he insisted that she was a “nut job” who’d made up the rape claim to sell her book.
Lawyers for both parties are expected to make their closing arguments on Monday, and the jury is expected to receive the case for deliberation on Tuesday.
