Former US president Donald Trump will have to sit for a deposition next week in a defamation case filed by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s, a judge ruled on Wednesday.
US district judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected a request by Mr Trump’s lawyers that the planned testimony be delayed. The deposition is now scheduled for October 19th.
The decision came in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a long-time advice columnist for Elle magazine, who says Mr Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store’s dressing room.
Mr Trump has denied it. Ms Carroll’s deposition is scheduled for Friday.
Mr Trump’s legal team has tried various tactics to delay the case and prevent him from being questioned by Ms Carroll’s lawyers, but Mr Kaplan wrote that it was time to move forward.
“The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong,” he wrote.
Ms Carroll claims that Mr Trump damaged her reputation in 2019 when he denied raping her.
His legal team has been trying to squash the case by arguing that he was just doing his job as president when he denied the allegations.
That is a key question because if Mr Trump was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee, the US government would become the defendant in the case.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals said in a split decision last month that Mr Trump was a federal employee when he commented on Ms Carroll’s claims, but asked another court in Washington to decide whether his public statements occurred during the scope of his employment.
Mr Kaplan said Mr Trump has repeatedly tried to delay the collection of evidence in the case.
“Given his conduct so far in this case, Mr Trump’s position regarding the burdens of discovery is inexcusable,” he wrote.
“As this court previously has observed, Mr Trump has litigated this case since it began in 2019 with the effect and probably the purpose of delaying it.”
