It was an historic event when Donald Trump appeared at his arraignment, marking the first time a U.S. president had ever been indicted on criminal charges. But it was only the beginning. The big guy has a mess of other legal woes, some of which would bring him back to the hometown that (mostly) hates him. He’s trying to skip out on appearing in one of his forthcoming trials, but it’s not because of the cool reception he’d receive. It’s because of traffic.
As per The New York Times, Joseph Tacopina, tbe guy’s attorney, has written to the judge lording over the trial for the lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, asking that his client be able to play hooky. Tacopina said that while Trump “wishes to appear,” he argued that by not returning to the city where he was once a key player, Trump is actually doing it a solid. That is, he’d spare locals and tourists from the traffic jams, blocked streets, and other headaches that resulted in his last two NYC visits.
According to NYT:
“But Mr. Tacopina noted that when Trump appeared in the nearby Manhattan State Supreme Court for his recent arraignment on unrelated criminal charges, Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive was shut down for a significant period while Mr. Trump traveled to the courthouse. Streets within a three-block radius of the court were blocked off while he was there, and he was constantly accompanied by about a dozen Secret Service agents.”
Is this Trump being a kind and attentive soul, putting others before himself? Or is he just trying to weasel out of unflattering photo ops? Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, thought she knew the answer.
“The notion that Mr. Trump would not appear as some sort of favor to the City of New York — and that the jury should be instructed as much — taxes the credulity of the credulous,” Kaplan responded. She pointed out that Manhattan’s federal court has entertained any number of high profile cases, some even involving terrorism.
It’s not the first time Trump has tried to alter the trial. On Monday, the judge turned down a request to delay it by a month.
The case involves Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her in the dressing room of Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department storie in the mid-‘90s. Trump has denied the accusation, infamously claiming that she was not his “type” — a crass line he contradicted last year during a deposition in which he confused a picture of Carroll at the time with his ex-wife Marla Maples. Carroll has also sued Trump for defamation, which is still in the pre-trial phase. This first trial is scheduled to start next Tuesday.
(Via NYT)