Trump must sit for deposition in defamation lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump will have to answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s, a judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected a request by Trump's lawyers that the planned testimony be delayed. The deposition is now scheduled for Oct. 19.

The decision came in a lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, who says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store's dressing room. Trump has denied it. Carroll is scheduled to be deposed Friday.

Trump's lawyer, Alina Habba, said in a statement: "We look forward to establishing on the record that this case is, and always has been, entirely without merit."

Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, said she was pleased with the ruling and looked forward to filing the new claims next month "and moving forward to trial with all dispatch."

Trump's legal team has tried various legal tactics to delay the lawsuit and prevent him from being questioned by Carroll's attorneys, but Judge Kaplan wrote that it was time to move forward, especially given the "advanced age" of Carroll, 78, and Trump, 76, and perhaps other witnesses.

"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.

Carroll's lawsuit claims that Trump damaged her reputation in 2019 when he denied raping her. Trump's legal team has been trying to squash the suit by arguing that the Republican was just doing his job as president when he denied the allegations, including when he dismissed his accuser as "not my type."

That's a key question because if Trump was acting within the scope of his duties as a federal employee, the U.S. government would become the defendant in the case.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a split decision last month that Trump was a federal employee when he commented on Carroll's claims.

Bill McCloud • Times-Herald Area first responders responded to a vehicle accident on Tuesday around 2 p.m. The wreck happened at the intersection of Garland and Washington streets.