Donald Trump has taken a seat in court, where jury selection in his defamation trial is scheduled to get underway this morning.

His decision to attend this trial is a clear shift for the former president, whose lawyers portrayed his absence from last year's defamation and battery trial as a service to New York City, saying the city would not have to suffer the "logistical and financial burdens" of Trump's attendance.

Carroll's attorneys, however, pounced on Trump's absence.

"He didn't even bother to show up here in person," attorney Roberta Kaplan told the jury.

Writing on social media last month, Trump blamed his absence at the trial on "not good advice" from his then-lawyer Joe Tacopina.

"I was asked by my lawyer not to attend--'It was beneath me, and they have no case.' That was not good advice," Trump wrote.

Trump attorney Alina Habba is serving as Trump's lead defense attorney for this week's trial.

E. Jean Carroll has arrived at the courthouse for the first day of the trial.

The former Elle magazine columnist smiled to reporters as she entered court.

Following his victory in Iowa, former President Trump landed at 3:30 a.m. in New York and just arrived at his civil defamation trial in lower Manhattan.

Trump is not required to attend the trial, though his decision not to attend last year's defamation and battery trial by the same plaintiff, writer E. Jean Carroll, was mocked by Carroll's attorney.

Trump's motorcade pulled up to the courthouse this morning at at 8:50 a.m. ET.

When Donald Trump's federal defamation trial gets underway in lower Manhattan this morning, it will be only about 11 hours since the former president claimed victory in the Iowa caucuses.

The trial is expected to take about a week, which could take Trump right to the doorstep of the New Hampshire Primary, scheduled for next Tuesday.

The former president did not attend last year's trial, held at the same courthouse, where a New York jury found him liable for sexually assaulting E. Jean Carroll and defaming her when he denied her accusation in a 2022 social media post.

Trump attorney Alina Habba, in her closing argument, questioned the sincerity of E. Jean Carroll's claims of emotional and professional harm and accused her of trying to pin the comments of Twitter trolls on a president of the United States.

"Ms. Carroll has failed to show she is entitled to any damages at all," Habba said.

Habba attempted to suggest that Donald Trump could not defend himself and that Carroll had paid for a lawyer for her friend Carol Martin, who testified as a hostile witness for the defense -- but Carroll's attorneys objected and Judge Lewis Kaplan sustained the objection.

"If you violate my instructions again, Ms. Habba, there could be consequences," the judge warned.

Habba said that Carroll failed to prove causation, slowly annunciating the word loudly into the microphone.

"They have to prove a direct causal connection between the harm they say she suffered and [Trump's] statements," Habba said, arguing that there were independent critics messaging Carroll before Trump issued his defamatory statements denying Carroll's June 2019 sexual assault allegation.

"This is the beauty and dangers of free speech in America. Everyone is entitled to their opinion," Habba said, asserting that Trump has no more control over the thoughts and feelings of social media users "than he does the weather."

"It is Ms. Carroll's burden, not President Trump's, to prove his statements are the cause of any harm, and clearly she has failed to meet that burden," Habba argued.

She also questioned the legitimacy of the harm Carroll claims to have suffered. "Who is E. Jean?" Habba asked, telling the jury there are two versions, and asserting that the true E. Jean Carroll is a narcissist out for fame and attention, "and the one who comes to court to get money from my client."

Habba also chided Carroll for deleting messages containing death threats -- which Carroll said she did because they were painful to see -- and for never calling the police.

"She deleted her own evidence," Habba said. "She has to give them to you to support their claim for damages, but they're not here and that's a fact."

As Trump looked on, hunched forward, hands folded on the table, Habba quoted his brief testimony saying he did not intend to hurt Carroll.

"We do not know the true identities of the people who sent the messages to Ms. Carroll," Habba said. "President Trump should not have to pay for their threats. He does not condone them. He did not direct them. All he did was tell his truth."