Trump authorized crew rejects requires testimony limits in defamation case By Reuters

(Reuters) – Donald Trump shouldn’t be pressured to testify as to his personal guilt or face strict warnings about crossing pink strains in his remarks ought to the previous U.S. president select to testify in a defamation trial set to start this week, his authorized crew argued on Sunday.

Trump is because of face a federal jury in New York this week to find out how a lot he ought to pay the author E. Jean Carroll for defaming her in 2019, one in every of a string of authorized entanglements he’s contending with as main elections for the 2024 Republican nomination, which the previous president is looking for, get below approach.

A jury final yr present in a civil case that Trump had sexually abused Carroll within the Nineties after which defamed her in 2022 by calling her a liar.

A number of courts have sought to require Trump to not stray into diatribes and speechmaking.

Attorneys for Carroll final week argued that, ought to Trump resolve to testify in his personal protection, he needs to be required to state out of the jury’s presence that he understands he assaulted her and needs to be warned towards disobeying court docket orders limiting what he can say.

U.S. District Choose Lewis Kaplan this month dominated that the previous president could not inform the jury he didn’t rape Kaplan.

” ()t can be a manifest injustice to require President Trump to proffer his guilt, below oath, for acts that he maintains didn’t happen” and which weren’t confirmed past an affordable doubt, legal professional Alina Habba wrote.

Habba additionally argued that, regardless of pre-set limits on his testimony, Trump can be free to testify concerning the context by which he made his remarks about Carroll as proof exhibiting whether or not he did so with hatred or ailing will.

“He can do that with out opining on the precise underlying occasions,” she wrote.