Trump team again demands mistrial in E. Jean Carroll case over deleted death threats

Former President Donald Trump on Friday asked U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to declare a mistrial in writer E. Jean Carroll's civil case against him, pointing to his admission that she deleted emails of death threats she said she received. 

Trump attorney Alina Habba on Wednesday made the same request, which Kaplan denied. Carroll admitted that day that she deleted the death threats, believing such a move "was the smartest, best, quickest way to get it out of my life," Reuters reported. In a letter to Kaplan on Friday, Habba contended that Carroll's deletion of emails "severely prejudices the President Trump's defense since he has been deprived of critical information relating to critical evidence which Plaintiff has described to the jury."

Carroll has accused Trump of raping her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room during the 1990s. A jury held Trump liable for battery and defamation in May of last year, though it specifically found that Trump's conduct amounted to sexual abuse and not rape. He maintains his innocence.

Following the jury decision, Trump appeared on a CNN town hall in which he publicly denied her allegations. Kaplan later permitted Carroll to amend a second defamation suit related to his denials to include those comments.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.