Trump’s defamation trial is postponed, complicating his possible testimony

NEW YORK — Testimony in Donald Trump’s federal defamation trial was canceled Monday after a juror reported feeling ill, pushing the next possible trial day to coincide with Tuesday’s primary contest in New Hampshire.

As a result, Trump lawyer Alina Habba asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to delay Trump’s own testimony until Wednesday. “My client reminded me tomorrow is the New Hampshire primary and he needs to be in New Hampshire,” Habba said, with Trump, the Republican presidential frontrunner, seated alongside her.

Habba said Trump had arrived in court Monday “planning to testify.”

A lawyer for the plaintiff, writer E. Jean Carroll, objected to such a delay, telling Kaplan, “we’d like to get this trial over,” and adding, “I just think we should finish tomorrow.” The trial, which began last Tuesday, was expected to take between three and five days. The trial took a pre-planned break on Friday.

Kaplan didn’t immediately rule on whether he would allow Trump to postpone his testimony.

Carroll is suing Trump for defamation over remarks he made in 2019, while he was president, denying her allegation that he raped her in the dressing room of a department store in the mid-1990s.

In addition to the sick juror, health concerns arose Monday on Trump’s own legal team. Habba told the judge she attended a dinner over the weekend with her parents, who subsequently tested positive for Covid-19, and that she had been feverish. Trump’s other lawyer on the case, Michael Madaio, also dined with them, she said.

Kaplan said both lawyers had tested negative for Covid on Monday morning.

Habba, Madaio and Trump, who sat between his lawyers in court, went unmasked throughout Monday’s brief proceedings.