A federal judge threatened Donald Trump's attorney Alina Habba with jail time on Friday, after the former president's lawyer kept contesting a ruling after it had been issued.
"You are on the verge of spending some time in the lockup," senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan warned. "Sit down."
The bombshell remark came moments before the start of closing arguments in Trump's second trial in a case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Before the jury was let into court, Carroll and Trump's attorneys had debated the boundaries for their closing arguments. Habba's co-counsel Michael Madaio had sought to arguing about what he could display in a slideshow to jurors before his summations began, and Carroll's legal team objected to the presentation of messages that were not entered into evidence.
Judge Kaplan sided with Carroll's legal team, and Madaio unsuccessfully tried to urge the judge to reconsider his ruling. That's when Habba jumped up and pressed on, insisting that she had to make a record. She stopped pushing her case after Kaplan threatened her with incarceration.
The jury then entered, and Carroll's lead attorney Roberta Kaplan — who shares a name with but isn't related to the judge — began her closing arguments.
Trump walked out of the courtroom shortly after the beginning of summations, but he returned before defense summations began, where Habba drew further rebukes from the judge.
Last year, a separate jury reached a $5 million verdict against Trump for sexual abuse and defamation, and that judgment precluded the former president and his lawyers from disputing the rape allegations any longer. Habba appeared to do so multiple times during her summations, prompting multiple sustained objections and another warning from the judge.
"If you violate my instructions again, Ms. Habba, there may be consequences," Kaplan said.
The jury's deliberations are expected to begin on Friday afternoon. They only must determine how much more in damages to award Carroll for Trump's denigrating statements about her, while he was president.