Former president Donald Trump has answered questions under oath in a lawsuit filed by a magazine columnist who says the Republican raped her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room.
The deposition gave E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers a chance to interrogate Mr Trump about the assault allegations as well as statements he made in 2019 when she told her story publicly for the first time.
“We’re pleased that on behalf of our client, E. Jean Carroll, we were able to take Donald Trump’s deposition today. We are not able to comment further,” said a spokesperson for the law firm representing her, Kaplan Hecker & Fink.
Mr Trump has said Ms Carroll’s rape allegation is “a hoax and a lie”.
His legal team worked for years to delay his deposition in the lawsuit, which was filed when he was still president.
A federal judge last week rejected Mr Trump’s request for another delay, saying he could not “run the clock out on plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong”.
Ms Carroll was to have been questioned by Mr Trump’s lawyers last Friday. Neither her attorneys and nor Mr Trump’s have responded to questions about how that deposition went.
Anything Mr Trump said during his deposition could potentially be used as evidence in an upcoming civil trial.
He has not faced any criminal charges related to Ms Carroll’s allegations and any prosecution is unlikely. The deadline for criminal charges over sexual assaults that occurred in the 1990s has long since expired.
Similar legal deadlines also applied to civil lawsuits over sexual assault. As a result, Ms Carroll chose to sue Mr Trump for defamation over comments he made in 2019 when he denied any wrongdoing. She maintains his denials and attacks on her credibility and character damaged her reputation.
However, New York lawmakers recently gave survivors of sexual violence a one-year window to sue their attackers over old assaults. Ms Carroll’s lawyer has told the court she intends to file such a suit against Mr Trump after that window opens in late November.
According to Ms Carroll’s account, she bumped into Mr Trump as the two were shopping at the Bergdorf Goodman store across Fifth Avenue from Trump Tower. At the time, Ms Carroll was on television as the host of an advice programme, Ask E. Jean.
She said the two engaged in friendly banter as she tried to help him pick out a gift. But when they were briefly alone in a dressing room, she said he pulled down her tights and raped her.
In a recent statement, Mr Trump called that story “a complete con job”.
“I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event,” Trump said.
