Judge Won’t Give Trump a Pass for Missing Rape Trial
NO EXCUSES
Donald Trump might skip his civil trial next week, citing the burden of feeling safe at the Manhattan federal courthouse—arguably the most secure fortress in New York City.
On Thursday, a New York federal judge told Donald Trump that he doesn’t have to show up to his own rape trial next week—but the judge won’t give jurors some lame excuse that the former president is unsafe when he’s actually too busy campaigning for re-election. Trump’s lawyers wanted the jurors, who will decide if Trump really did rape the journalist E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s, to hear that Trump would love to be there but cannot right now because it’s just too burdensome on New York City. They asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to issue a formal excuse, but the judge instead signed an order that says the opposite: Trump is very much welcome to show up and can’t complain about alleged insufficient security because it’s actually a highly guarded federal courthouse. After glancing at Trump’s campaign website and noticing that he has a campaign event in New Hampshire scheduled on what will be Day 3 of the rape trial, Kaplan wrote: “If the Secret Service can protect him at that event, certainly the Secret Service, the Marshals Service, and the City of New York can see to his security in this very secure federal courthouse.”
