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Former US president Donald Trump was deposed on Wednesday in a defamation lawsuit brought in New York by writer E Jean Carroll after he denied her allegations that he had raped her, lawyers for both sides said in separate statements.
The deposition came a week after a federal judge denied Mr Trump’s bid to postpone the proceeding, rejecting his contention in legal filings that subjecting the former president to questioning under oath in the lawsuit would impose an “undue burden.”
“We’re pleased that on behalf of our client, E Jean Carroll, we were able to take Donald Trump’s deposition today,” her spokesperson said in a statement, declining to provide further details.
An attorney for Mr Trump, Alina Habba, issued a separate statement later in the day confirming the deposition, saying: “As we have said all along, my client was pleased to set the record straight today.”
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Ms Habba added: “This case is nothing more than a political ploy like many others in the long list of witch hunts against Donald Trump.” .
Ms Carroll (78), a former Elle magazine advice columnist, sued Mr Trump in Manhattan federal court in November 2019, five months after he denied raping her in the mid-1990s. In denying the allegations, Mr Trump said at the time that Ms Carroll was “not my type.”
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Mr Trump (76), has accused Mr Carroll of making up the original accusation and said the courts should have thrown out the lawsuit. Ms Habba has previously called the case “entirely without merit.”
In seeking to delay the deposition, Mr Trump had argued that the case should be put on hold while a federal appeals court in Washington, DC, decides whether he was acting in his official capacity as president when he called Ms Carroll a liar.
His lawyers have argued that Mr Trump was shielded from Ms Carroll’s lawsuit by a federal law providing immunity to government employees from defamation claims.
Ms Carroll has said she also plans to sue Mr Trump on November 24th for battery and inflicting emotional distress.
On that date, a recently enacted New York state law gives victims a one-year window to sue over alleged sexual misconduct even if the statute of limitations has expired.
Ms Carroll has accused Mr Trump of raping her in late 1995 or early 1996 in a dressingroom at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. Mr Trump has accused her of concocting the rape claim to sell her book. — Reuters