“Glaringly obvious” incompetence on display as judge tells jury to “disregard everything Ms. Habba just said”
Trump lawyer Alina Habba struggled through her cross-examination of E. Jean Carroll on Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the defamation case against the former president, repeatedly admonished the attorney for running afoul of his court rules and general procedures.
Prior to Carroll’s testimony, Habba requested an adjournment so that Trump could attend his mother-in-law’s funeral.
“The application is denied. I will hear no further argument on it. None. Do you understand that word? None. Please sit down,” Kaplan, a Bill Clinton appointee, told Habba about the motion that he already denied.
Kaplan repeatedly interrupted Habba’s questions, including when she began to read from a document that had not been formally entered into evidence, sending the trial to a recess.
This is a pretty good indicator of the quality of her legal guidance, in that she’s halfway to a valid form of objection, but seems to have forgotten the other half of it. You are allowed to object to evidence or testimony that is more prejudicial (i.e. “the defendant was seen kicking puppies at the dog park on a weekly basis”) than it is probative, meaning that ts useful in proving or disproving the allegations (the case was actually about a bank robbery not involving puppies at all). You can’t just cry “prejudiced!” and expect the judge to go along with you.
Trump’s team also did themselves no favors by objecting out of turn, especially after he explicitly ordered “one witness, one lawyer” during a recess.