Judge, citing Trump’s ‘repeated public statements,’ orders anonymous jury in defamation suit trial

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge has cited former President Donald Trump’s “repeated public statements” among reasons why a jury will be anonymous when it considers damages stemming from a defamation lawsuit by a writer who says Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s. Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan issued an order Friday establishing that the jury to be chosen for the January trial in Manhattan federal court will be transported by the U.S. Marshals Service. Another jury earlier this year awarded $5 million to columnist E. Jean Carroll after finding that Trump sexually abused her in 1996 in the dressing room of a luxury department store.