Judge Threatens to Have Trump Removed from Courtroom, by Force if Necessary

Donald Trump is back in court and he is pushing the buttons of yet another federal judge.

This time, Trump managed to get under the skin of Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is presiding over the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.

By the end of the day, Kaplan was warning Trump that he would have him removed from the room if he kept up his antics, by force if necessary.

I Dare You

I am not sure what Trump’s legal strategy is in these civil cases, but he may want to rethink it.

His antics during the New York civil fraud case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James will surely result in a guilty verdict, with Trump standing to now lose $370 million in fines.

He is quickly headed down the same route in the second defamation cause from E. Jean Carroll.

Trump was reportedly reacting very loudly to Carroll’s testimony, to the point that Kaplan warned Trump that he had “marshals lined up,” ready to remove Trump if he “steps one iota out of line.”

Trump reportedly told the judge that he would “love” to see that happen after the warning was issued.

Ex-prosecutor Shan Wu added that the judge would look to shut down Trump moving forward to try to keep him in line during the trial.

Wu stated, “If the judge really constrains [Trump] — [Kaplan] has a number of ways to constrain him.

“[Kaplan] can interrupt him. He can tell the lawyers to try to control them. He could offer to even sanction him if he continues that. Or you could just stop him from testifying. So there’s ways for the judge to control Trump.

“And I think that the way it plays out is Trump just wants as much time as he can in the limelight there to be doing his thing, to be railing against the judge.”

I believe Trump is going to use the same tactic that he used during the fraud case, in trying to upset the judge to make it appear that the court is biased against Trump. This will enable Trump to continue to push the narrative that he is the victim, which has worked very well for him with his base and donors thus far.

Trump, from the outset, has claimed that Kaplan is out to get him, so this all supports his claims, at least in his eyes and the eyes of his die-hard supporters.

I would suspect that between Trump’s early primary performances and these cases, the money will start to flow again, as Trump has been masterful at using these trials to his advantage on the fundraising front.