Eric Trump, the son of former President Donald Trump, appeared to delete a post on social media discussing the ongoing civil lawsuit of defamation and rape filed by E. Jean Carroll, after a warning by the judge overseeing the case.
Trump has denied the allegations and accused the former Elle magazine columnist of lying.
The post by Eric Trump, which has since been deleted, discussed the funding of Carroll's lawsuit against the former president and screenshots of the post showed that it said: "Zoom out: Jean Carroll's legal battle against my father is allegedly being FUNDED by political activist Reid Hoffman (co-founder of Linkedin). A civil lawsuit, being funded by a billionaire, with no direct involvement in the case, out of pure hatred, spite or fear of a formidable candidate, is an embarrassment to our country, should be illegal and tells you everything you need to know about the case at hand."
Wednesday marked the second day of trial in the legal battle between Carroll and Trump, with cross-examination by the former president's attorneys due on Thursday. Carroll alleges that Trump defamed her when making comments denying a rape that she claims happened in a dressing room in New York City in the 1990s.
Prior to the start of the trial on Wednesday, Donald Trump posted several messages on his Truth Social account where he spoke about the trial and called it a "made up SCAM."
"The E. Jean Carroll case, Ms. Bergdorf Goodman, is a made up SCAM. Her lawyer is a political operative, financed by a big political donor that they said didn't exist, only to get caught lying about that. Just look at her CNN interview before & after the commercial break - Like a different person. She said there was a dress, using the ol' Monica Lewinsky "stuff", then she didn't want to produce it. The dress should be allowed to be part of the case. This is a fraudulent & false story--Witch Hunt!" Trump said in the post.
The since-deleted tweet, which was a screenshot of a TruthSocial post and read aloud in court today, preserved online pic.twitter.com/zr9SJSzwXL
— JOSH RUSSELL (@jruss_jruss) April 26, 2023
The posts by Trump and his son prompted a warning from the judge overseeing the case, Judge Lewis Kaplan. He said that speaking of "litigation funding is precluded," and warned that any further discussion of this could result in potential charges.
"Your client is perhaps sailing into harm's way with his son," Kaplan said. "There are some relevant United States statutes here, and someone ought to be thinking about them."
Kaplan added that Trump's comments could be seen as "tampering with a new source of potential liability."
On Wednesday, Carroll took the stand to testify and detailed her experience with Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. According to her testimony, she and Trump were in the lingerie department when he suggested that she try some clothes on. He eventually followed her into the dressing room, closed the door, and raped her, Carroll testified.
"I didn't want to make a scene. I didn't want to make him angry at me," she said.
Newsweek reached out to Trump's spokesperson via email for comment.
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