Former US president Donald Trump gave evidence on Wednesday in a defamation case pitting him against a prominent former columnist who says he raped her in the 1990s.
“We’re pleased that on behalf of our client, E Jean Carroll, we were able to take Donald Trump’s deposition today,” the law firm Kaplan Hecker and Fink said in a statement. “We are not able to comment further.”
Ms Carroll alleges that Mr Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store about 30 years ago.
Mr Trump had no choice but to go ahead with the deposition after a New York judge last week rejected the former president’s latest effort to put the questioning on hold.
It was not immediately clear how long Mr Trump was questioned by Ms Carroll’s lawyers or whether he asserted his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. It was also unknown if he submitted the sworn deposition from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
Ms Carroll also was to have been questioned by Ms Trump’s lawyers last Friday. Neither her legal representatives nor Mr Trump’s have shared how that deposition went.
Ms Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan is a co-founder of the Time's Up movement that provides legal aid to victims of sexual assault.
A former columnist for Elle magazine, Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump for defamation in a New York civil court in November 2019.
In an excerpt of her book published by New York Magazine that year, Ms Carroll said Mr Trump raped her in the changing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue.
Mr Trump denied the accusation, saying Ms Carroll was “not my type” and that she was “totally lying”, which prompted the defamation suit.
The case has been delayed by procedural battles, including whether Mr Trump should be represented by the US government, since he was president at the time he made the statements.
Several media outlets on Tuesday reported that Mr Trump's lawyers have always claimed their client was protected by his executive immunity, particularly for allegedly defamatory statements he made during his time in office.
Last week, Mr Trump made new comments about the case on his right-wing Truth Social platform, mocking Ms Carroll's rape allegations.
Legal experts cited in a Vice News report said Ms Carroll could argue that Mr Trump had defamed her again — this time as a private citizen.
The judge in the case said last week that Ms Carroll could claim damages from Mr Trump for the alleged rape starting from November 24, after a New York state law comes into effect that allows survivors of sexual assault to file a civil suit regardless of the statute of limitations.
News agencies contributed to this report
