Donald Trump may soon have to answer rape allegations under oath, according to a new report from Reuters. The impending deposition of the former president is part of a case brought against him by writer E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her during a visit to New York City in the mid-1990s.
Carroll, 77, says she hopes the day to face Trump in a court of law will come this year. Her lawyers are seeking to depose Trump in a defamation lawsuit that Carroll filed against the former president in November 2019 after he denied her accusation that he raped her, saying he never knew Carroll and accused her of lying to sell her new book, adding: “She’s not my type.”
She plans to be there if Trump is deposed. In fact, the author and journalist said went shopping to find the “best outfit” for that day, according to Reuters.
“I am living for the moment to walk into that room to sit across the table from him,” Carroll told Reuters in an interview. “I think of it everyday.”
Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist seeks unspecified damages in her lawsuit and a retraction of Trump’s statements. The lawsuit is one of two defamation cases involving sexual misconduct allegations against Trump that could move forward faster now that he has left the presidency. While in office, Trump’s lawyers delayed the case in part by arguing that the pressing duties of his office made responding to civil lawsuits impossible.
Trump faces a similar defamation lawsuit from Summer Zervos, a former contestant on his reality television show “The Apprentice.” In 2016, Zervos accused Trump of sexual misconduct, saying that he kissed her against her will at a 2007 meeting in New York and later groped her at a California hotel as the two met to discuss job opportunities.
Trump denied the allegations and called Zervos a liar, prompting her to sue him for defamation in 2017, seeking damages and a retraction. Trump tried unsuccessfully to have the case dismissed, arguing that, as president, he was immune from suits filed in state courts.
As noted by Reuters, “Zervos and Carroll are among more than two dozen women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct that they say occurred in the years before he became president. Other accusers include a former model who claims Trump sexually assaulted her at the 1997 U.S. Open tennis tournament; a former Miss Universe pageant contestant who said Trump groped her in 2006; and a reporter who alleges Trump forcibly kissed her without her consent in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago resort.”
You can read the entire report here.
