'Cartoon villain' Trump is 'acting like the guiltiest man alive' in court: columnist

Donald Trump behaved like a villain straight out of central casting when he appeared in a New York City courtroom Thursday as a jury heard evidence in his defamation case filed by author E. Jean Carroll, according to an observer.

MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin has been in the courtroom, where she said Trump glowered and glared at Carroll, who he was found liable of sexually abusing and then defaming in a previous trial. Salon columnist Amanda Marcotte said the four-times-indicted former president could not have acted more guilty if he tried.

"Trump has embraced the novel strategy of acting exactly like a cartoonishly evil villain on an episode of 'Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,'" Marcotte wrote. "Despite repeatedly whining about how much time he has to spend in court, Trump has shown up in court, even though he doesn't have to, just to intimidate not just Carroll but the jury members."

"The only way he could seem any more like a sexual predator is if he wore a raincoat to court and periodically flashed any woman who came into view," she added.

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U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan has already warned Trump and his lawyers that the facts of the case — that he sexually abused Carroll two decades ago in a Manhattan department store dressing room and then defamed her when she went public – are not in dispute, but that hasn't stopped the ex-president and attorney Alina Habba from attacking his victim in court and menacing jurors who would dare to hold him accountable.

"One would think that Trump would want this trial over with, if only to end the news cycle dominated with reminders he sexually assaults women," Marcotte wrote. "But it's a sign that there's something even more important to him: Continuing to torture Carroll. He cannot stand that she stood up to him and won. The narcissistic injury is too great. So he'll continue to act like the guiltiest man alive."