United States: Sued for defamation, Donald Trump testified in court

Donald Trump testified Wednesday in a defamation case launched in 2019 by a former journalist, E. Jean Carroll, who accuses the former US president of raping her in the 1990s.

A Manhattan federal court judge on October 12 rejected Donald Trump’s request to postpone his sworn testimony before the US judicial system, the former head of state systematically contesting this defamation action for three years. On Wednesday, New York judge Lewis Kaplan ruled that the depositions of E. Jean Carroll, 78, and Donald Trump, 76, would be held on Friday, October 14 and Wednesday, October 19, respectively.

“We are pleased that on behalf of our client E. Jean Carroll we were able to receive Donald Trump’s testimony today,” law firm Kaplan Hecker and Fink, representing E. Jean Carroll, told AFP without further comment.

According to the New York Times, the deposition of the former president – which can take place through a video exchange between lawyers and New York justice – took place from his residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. We do not know, however, if E. Jean Carroll testified last Friday.

In these defamation proceedings, E. Jean Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine, attacked Donald Trump in a civil proceeding in November 2019 in New York. She accused him of defaming her for calling her allegations of rape in a New York department store locker room in the mid-1990s a “complete lie” in June 2019.

The Republican president, then in office (2017-2021), said he had never met her and that “she was not his kind of woman”. The libel suit was delayed by procedural battles, including whether Donald Trump should be represented by the US government, as he was president at the time of the contested statements.

The former president’s lawyers – who did not respond to AFP requests – always said their client was protected by his immunity, particularly for the defamatory statements he allegedly made during his tenure. But as the Vice News site noted on Tuesday, the businessman launched a new outburst on October 12 on his social network Truth Social, mocking E. John Carroll’s rape allegations.

So, according to lawyers quoted by Vice News, the plaintiff could argue that Donald Trump, this time as a private individual, defamed her again. And, in his October 12 order, Judge Kaplan indicated that E. Jean Carroll could seek damages from Donald Trump for the alleged rape once a New York state law goes into effect on November 24. account of the statute of limitations.