Trump being deposed in rape defamation lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll
Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. CPAC began in 1974, and is a conference that brings together and hosts conservative organizations, activists, and world leaders in discussing current events and future political agendas.
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Former President Donald Trump is set to be deposed Wednesday for a civil lawsuit accusing him of defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of raping her.
Trump on Oct. 12 lost his bid to delay being questioned under oath by Carroll’s lawyers when a federal judge brushed aside arguments that a pending appeal in the lawsuit warranted putting the case on hold.
The timing of Trump’s deposition and its location were not immediately available Wednesday.
“We do not have those details and do not have a comment,” said a spokesman for Carroll’s lawyer Roberta “Robbie” Kaplan.
Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Carroll was scheduled to have been deposed for the case last Friday.
A trial in the case is scheduled for February.
Even if that trial is put on hold, or outright canceled as the result of the pending appeal, Carroll plans to sue the 76-year-old Trump in New York state court next month under a new law that lifted the statute of limitations for claims of rape and sexual abuse.
Carroll’s lawyers could use Trump’s Wednesday deposition in that planned suit.
The deposition comes two months after Trump refused to answer questions under oath in a deposition by lawyers for New York Attorney General Letitia James in connection with a civil investigation of his company, the Trump Organization. Trump invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination more than 440 times in that deposition.
James last month sued Trump, his company, three of his adult children and others, alleging widespread fraud involving allegedly false financial statements related to the company’s business. James is seeking at least $250 million in damages in that case, as well as sanctions.
Carroll, 78, wrote in a 2019 New York magazine article that Trump raped her in a dressing room in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s after a chance encounter in the store.
Trump, who was president at the time of the article, responded that Carroll was lying and motivated by money and political considerations to concoct the account.
Carroll then sued Trump for defamation in New York state court.
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