Attorneys for E. Jean Carroll, who’s suing former President Trump for sexual battery and defamation, have released about 48 minutes of video of Trump’s deposition in the case.
The video can be seen here.
Carroll, a former advice columnist for Elle magazine, filed suit against Trump for battery under New York State’s Adult Suvivor’s Act on the same day the legislation went into effect—Thanksgiving day.
She has asserted that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Carroll already had a pending lawsuit against Trump for defamation, saying his public denials and disparaging comments have damaged her reputation. She is seeking unspecified damages in her battery lawsuit, asserting that Trump caused her lasting psychological harm.
Trump has called her allegations “a con job,” a “hoax” and a “lie,” as well as “a complete scam,” which he maintains aren’t defamatory comments and are the truth.
Trump himself was not called as a witness for the defense. In fact, the defense rested its case without calling any witnesses.
In lieu of questioning Trump, the Carroll team played excerpts from his deposition taken in October.
In the deposition, conducted at Trump’s Florida country club residence Mar-a-Lago, Carroll attorney Roberta Kaplan asked Trump about the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape from 2005 in which Trump can be heard saying, “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”
“Well, historically that’s true with stars,” Trump replied in the deposition after watching a clip of his comments.
When Kaplan pressed him about whether he stood by the statement that a star could “grab them by the p***y,” Trump replied, “Well, I guess if you look over the last million years, that’s been largely true—not always true, but largely true, unfortunately or fortunately.”
When Kaplan further questioned, “And you consider yourself to be a star?” Trump responded, “I think so, yeah.”
Ahead of the trial, Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected Trump’s bid to exclude the “Access Hollywood” video from evidence.
He also rejected a request from Trump attorneys for a one-month “cooling off” period following Trump’s arraignment April 4 on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money paid to at least two women ahead of the 2016 Presidential election. That hearing took place just a few blocks from where the rape trial is occurring.
PHOTO: Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Courthouse, Manhattan
