By Steve Neavling
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush money trial cleared the courtroom Monday to admonish defense witness Robert Costello for being belligerent and combative.
While Costello, an attorney and MAGA loyalist, was on the stand, he was combative and surly. Amid repeated objections from the prosecutor, Costello muttered “jeez” and appeared to roll his eyes when Justice Juan Merchan sustained the objections, Politico reports.
Merchan ordered the jury out of the courtroom and reprimanded Costello.
“If you don’t like my ruling, you don’t say ‘jeez.’ And then you don’t say ‘strike it.’ You don’t give me side eye, and you don’t roll your eyes,” the judge told Costello.
Before calling the jury back, Merchan snapped, “Are you staring me down right now?”
The judge then ordered journalists and onlookers out of the courtroom to continue to scold the witness.
“I’m putting you on notice that your conduct is contemptuous,” the judge said to Costello, according to a transcript released Monday evening. “If you try to stare me down one more time, I will remove you from the stand.”
Costello was a key witness for the defense, which took aim at former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, who testified that Trump instructed him to pay $130,000 to silence porn star Stormy Daniels and then signed off on a scheme to falsify records to hide the payment.
Costello insisted that Cohen said in a private meeting and phone calls that Trump was unaware of the payments to Daniels.
After court adjourned for the day, Trump called the judge “a tyrant.”
“You saw what happened to a highly respected lawyer today,” Trump said. “Wow.”
