Donald Trump storms out of closing arguments in E Jean Carroll trial

Roughly 20 minutes after walking into the courtroom, Donald Trump stormed out of closing arguments in a civil trial to determine how much money he owes E Jean Carroll for repeatedly defaming her.

The former president arrived in federal court in Manhattan on Friday morning after briefly testifying in his defence on Thursday afternoon, after which he unleashed more attacks and potentially defamatory statements about the former Elle magazine columnist.

In her closing statement, Ms Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told jurors that the former president “acts as if these rules of law just don’t apply to him.”

His attacks didn’t stop after he was found liable for defamation and sexual abuse in a $5m jury verdict, she noted.

“Not at all,” Ms Kaplan said. “Not even for 24 hours.”

Mr Trump then stood up from the defence table, where he was seated next to attorney Alina Habba, and walked out of the hearing, to which he had arrived late.

“The record will reflect that Mr Trump just rose and walked out of the courtroom,” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan said.

Donald Trump leaves Trump Tower on 26 January before heading to a federal court for closing arguments in a defamation trial that will determine how much he owes E Jean Carroll.

Mr Trump returned to the courtroom for defence closing arguments from Ms Habba.

As he returned to the courtroom, his Truth Social account fired off several posts repeating incendiary and potentially defamatory claims about the case, claiming he is a victim of “extortion” and falsely labelling the case a “Joe Biden-directed Election Interference Attack” against him.

A New York City jury is set to determine monetary damages owed to Ms Carroll, whom Mr Trump repeatedly defamed by claiming he never met her,