Monday, January 22, 2024

Immunity From Defamation?

Does Trump understand his immunity argument doesn’t work right now?
Meanwhile, seconds after the judge agreed to postpone the trial at least until tomorrow, Trump posted his biggest flurry of social media attacks yet on Carroll, with 44 separate attacks on his Truth Social account within 20 minutes of getting the postponement. I won't post them all here, but most of them include old social media posts Carroll has made or articles about her. An example to give you an idea is this 2011 post purportedly from Carroll where she played F/M/K with her followers and chose Ryan Seacrest, Dick Cheney and Steve Jobs. Typical of a Trump attack.
Yeah, I don’t get it, either. Except that Trump has absolutely no concept of what a trial is or how evidence is submitted (he matches his lawyer on that). He’s trying his case in the press (well, close enough) , apparently thinking the public is the jury. There’s a reason none of these posts are admissible in court: they have bugger all to do with damages.

I cannot overstate how little Trump understands what’s going on. This is not a lethal assault on the judiciary or a foundational attack on the rule of law. This is a temper tantrum. This is a two-year old yelling “No! No! No!” over and over. In this case the two-year old has access to social media.

The fun part is what the judge did:
Trump's attorney Alina Habba showed up in court this morning and told the court that her parents have covid. One of the jurors who was feeling ill was also apparently sent home, but the trial could have continued without that juror if the parties agreed. This juror later tested negative for covid. However, Habba said that she wanted the trial delayed because tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary, and she told the court that Trump did not want to testify before the election.
Trump doesn’t want to face the question of testifying until after Tuesday. I expect the judge will tell Habba to wear a mask in court, and they can go on without one juror. There should be alternates for this very reason. If Trump wants to testify, he’ll probably have to do it tomorrow.
Trump never testifies under oath voluntarily. He likely knows that if he backed out of testifying today or tomorrow, that would make him look bad right before they vote in NH. If he does testify and it goes poorly, that will dominate the news cycle on election day. Trump doesn't want either of those things to happen, so Alina Habba's parents allegedly contracting covid was a fortuitous coincidence that may give him the delay that he seeks.
That’s the situation, but I think Kaplan will tell Habba to fish or cut bait, and give Trump one chance to testify or forever hold his peace. Trump wanted the delay until Wednesday (and it’s an open question whether he’s smart enough to not slam the judge today, if he gets tired of attacking Carroll). If Trump testifies, it will be short, sweet, and perfunctory. Trump can only testify as to Carroll’s damage claims, and frankly it’s impossible to imagine what he has to say that would be evidence. He can’t give his opinion: he’s the defendant and can’t be qualified as an expert (only expert witnesses can offer opinion testimony). I suspect Kaplan will charge Trump to stick to any facts he might have to offer on the subject of damages, and when Trump can’t do that, will disallow his testimony altogether (on the grounds of relevance and the rules of evidence, although the latter pretty much establishes the former). Trump thinks he’s going to get to make a campaign speech nobody hears (no cameras). That was never going to happen.

So we’ll find out if a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, whether or not it makes a noise.

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