Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, testified on Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit where he is battling a well-known former American columnist who claims he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
According to Carroll, Trump allegedly sexually attacked E. Jean Carroll, 78, in a New York department store.
Trump, who has refuted the charge, attempted to postpone his deposition further last week, but the judge in New York’s federal court dismissed his request.
“We’re thrilled that on behalf of our client… we were able to take Donald Trump’s deposition today,” the New York legal firm representing Carroll stated in a statement.
Kaplan Hecker & Fink, the company, said that it was “unable to speak more.”
Carroll’s and Trump’s depositions should take place on October 14 and October 19, respectively, according to Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision about the testimony last week.
Carroll may have testified last Friday, but that is unknown.
Also unclear at the time was whether Trump filed the sworn deposition from his Florida Mar-a-Lago home.
Carroll tweeted a picture of Roberta Kaplan on Tuesday with the message “Carroll vs Trump” and good luck for tomorrow. Later, she removed the tweet.
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Kaplan, a co-founder of the Time’s Up campaign that offers legal assistance to victims of sexual assault, is unconnected to the case’s judge.
In November 2019, Carroll, a former Elle magazine journalist, filed a defamation lawsuit against then-president Trump in a New York civil court.
Carroll said that Trump sexually assaulted her in the changing room at the upscale Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue in New York City in the middle of the 1990s in an extract from her book published by New York Magazine that year.
Carroll filed a defamation complaint after Trump refuted the claim, calling Carroll “not my type” and asserting that she was “absolutely lying.”
Procedural disputes, such as whether the US government should represent Trump because he was president when the remarks were made, have caused the case to be postponed.
Several media sites reported on Tuesday that Trump’s attorneys have always maintained that their client was shielded by executive immunity, especially concerning potentially disparaging remarks he allegedly made while in office.
Trump mocked Carroll’s rape accusations in fresh remarks he published last week on his right-wing Truth Social platform.
According to legal experts quoted in a Vice News investigation, Carroll may contend that Trump once again defamed her, this time as a private person.
Judge Kaplan said last week that Carroll might bring a civil lawsuit against Trump for the alleged rape beginning on November 24, when a New York state law that permits sexual assault survivors to do so regardless of the statute of limitations takes effect.