Trump goes to face rape accuser with strange red marks on his hand

Former President Donald Trump was spotted heading to court to face his rape accuser with several mysterious red marks on his hand.

The ex-president waved with his right hand at cameras as he departed Trump Tower on Wednesday morning en route to Manhattan federal court. The gesture revealed that Trump had red marks on his thumb, index finger and upper palm.

Trump appeared for the second day of the defamation trial brought by columnist E Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in a New York City department store dressing room in the 1990s.

He stared down Carroll as she took the stand on Wednesday morning, saying she was testifying with the desire to stop him ‘from telling lies about me’.

‘I’m here because Donald Trump assaulted me and when asked about it, he denied it,’ she said. ‘Now I’m known as a liar, a fraud and a whack job.’

Carrol is seeking $10million in damages. It is her second defamation lawsuit against Trump. In May, another jury awarded her $5million after finding Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming her.

As Trump watched, his lawyer, Alina Habba, had a heated exchange with US District Judge Lewis Kaplan. Habba argued repeatedly that the trial should be postponed for the funeral of former first lady Melania’s mother, taking place on Thursday.

‘It’s denied,’ said Kaplan. ‘All right, sit down, Ms Habba.’

That prompted Trump to remark: ‘Nasty guy.’

Trump shook his head, appeared upset and whispered to his lawyer as Carroll testified.

Carrol’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, later complained that Trump was ‘loudly saying things’ within earshot of the jury as his client was on the witness stand.

Trump could be heard saying, ‘Carroll’s statements are false’ and ‘now she seems to have gotten her memory back’, according to NBC News.

‘It’s loud enough for us to hear it,’ Crowley said while the jurors took a break. ‘I imagine it’s loud enough for the jury to hear it.’

The judge after the 15-minute break instructed Trump on the matter.

‘I’m going to ask that Mr Trump take special care to keep his voice down when conferring with counsel so that the jury does not overhear,’ Kaplan said.

Carroll testified that she took Trump’s 2019 statement from the White House that ‘she is not my type’ to mean ‘I’m too ugly to assault’.

‘It makes it hard for a girl to get up in the morning,’ she said. ‘I know I’m old. I know I’m 80. I know I’m not a pretty young woman, but it makes it tough to go on with the day.’

Carroll also detailed death threats she said she received after Trump’s statements about her, including that she should be killed by a ‘firing squad’ or ‘by execution’.

Her lawyer again accused the ex-president of speaking loudly near the jurors, causing the judge to say, ‘Trump has a right to be present here but that right can be forfeited if he is disruptive… or disregards our orders’.

‘Mr Trump, I hope I don’t have to…’ Kaplan said, before being cut off.

‘I would love it. I would love it,’ said Trump, throwing his hands up in the air.

Kaplan then said of the threat to toss Trump from the courtroom: ‘I understand that you are probably very eager for me to do that. I know you would like that, because you just can’t control yourself in this circumstance, apparently.’

‘You can’t either,’ replied Trump.

During the lunch break, Trump attacked the judge in a series of posts on his Truth Social platform. Trump wrote that he did not attend Carroll’s first defamation trial, also presided by Kaplan, because his lawyers said it was ‘beneath me as a former President of the United States’.

Trump continued, ‘I should have gone, if for no other reason than to witness and speak up against the abuse carried out by this Judge.’

‘I feel an obligation to be at every moment of this ridiculous trial because we have a seething and hostile Clinton-appointed Judge, Lewis Kaplan, who suffers from a major case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,’ wrote Trump.

He proceeded to blast Kaplan for not granting a one day delay ‘so that I can attend the funeral of my beloved mother-in-law, with my wife and entire family, tomorrow in Palm Beach, Florida’.

‘The Judge, angrily, and somewhat surprisingly, said NO, you can go to the trial, or you can go to the funeral, but not both,’ Trump wrote. ‘He is abusive, rude, and obviously not impartial but, that’s the way this crooked system works!’

Habba grilled Carroll during cross-examination on why she deleted messages with death threats. Carroll said she did so because she did not know how to deal with them. Habba asked the judge for a mistrial on that matter, but was denied.

Kaplan also scolded Habba for reading a transcript of a deposition that she had not provided to him. Habba found the section of the document and provided it to the court clerk.

‘We are going to do it my way in the courtroom, and that is all there is to it,’ the judge said in a raised voice.

The trial adjourned around 4.30pm and resumes on Thursday morning with Habba set to continue questioning Carroll.

It was not immediately known what the red marks on Trump’s hand were.

Some X (formerly Twitter) users speculated that Trump may have fallen recently or had ‘hand herpes’.

An associate professor of dermatology at Mount Sinai Hospital, Dr Joshua Zeichner, said Trump likely got a rash that could be caused by dry skin, blisters from golf, getting lime juice on his hands, or something else.

‘Rashes on the hands can be caused by a variety of factors,’ Zeichner told Business Insider, ‘Ranging from infections to inflammatory conditions to external exposures.’

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

MORE : Boy, 10, bitten while on ‘shark tank’ expedition at resort

MORE : Man held gun to dad’s head and said ‘goodnight sweetheart’ before pulling trigger

MORE : Prison officer ‘given money, gifts and promises to lie for murder trial inmate’

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.