AFP
NOS News•
Donald Trump has denied rape allegations in court. In released parts of an interrogation the former president conducted last October, he calls the woman who sued him mentally disturbed and a nutcase who made up the allegation to sell books.
Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of rape in 2019. That would have happened in the mid-1990s when she helped him pick out lingerie in a department store. The businessman would have assaulted her in a fitting room.
Carroll initially sued Trump for defamation because he publicly called her a liar over the allegations. When the state of New York recently made it possible to temporarily bring time-barred sex offenses to court, it also sued Trump for that.
‘total liar’
Trump has previously reacted furiously to the charges. He said he never met Carroll and she made up the whole story to promote a book she was putting out. “A very, very bad book,” Trump said during the interrogation.
In the 5.5-hour interrogation at his Florida estate Mar-a-Lago, Trump repeated those views. “She is being paid by a militant left-wing publisher to say bad and untrue things,” the former president said. “She’s a total liar.”
Trump lashed out at Carroll, calling him a nutcase and crazy. “It’s all a big farce. She’s a liar and a sick person in my opinion. Really sick. There’s something really wrong with her.”
Other cases
Carroll’s lawyer also asked Trump, who has often been accused of sexual abuse but has never been convicted, whether he had often touched indecently without consent. “I answer ‘no’, but maybe there are other people like your client who are lying.”
He further resented Carroll for having to “waste a whole day with these ridiculous questions” because of her complaints. Trump said he plans to sue her and her lawyer. “That’s the one thing I’m really looking forward to.”
Trump’s lawyers had asked that the quotes from the interrogation not be made public, but the judge did not agree. Also rejected those Trumps requests to stay the lawsuits. The trial therefore remains scheduled for sometime in April.
