DAccording to media reports, former US President Donald Trump testified on Wednesday in a defamation trial in connection with allegations of rape by author E. Jean Carroll. “We are pleased that we were able to record Donald Trump’s affidavit today on behalf of our client E. Jean Carroll. We are unable to make any further comments,” the US broadcaster CNN quoted the spokesman for the law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink, which represents Caroll. Details of the content and scope of the statement were not disclosed; Trump’s lawyers initially did not comment.
Among other things, Carroll wrote in a book excerpt published in the summer of 2019 that Trump raped her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s. The Republican had already rejected the allegations in 2019 – including with the words: “She’s not my type”. He said, while still President, that he had never met Carroll. She’s just trying to sell a new book and has accused other men of similar things. Carroll then sued Trump for portraying her as a liar and thus defaming her.
“I don’t know this woman”
A judge in New York last week rejected Trump’s attempt to postpone his testimony in the libel trial. Trump then repeated in a post on the social network Truth Social, which he co-founded, that Caroll had invented the whole thing. “I don’t know this woman, I have no idea who she is.” He complained that he had to endure more years of “legal mischief”.
The Republican has been repeatedly accused of assaulting women. So far, none of these allegations have had any legal consequences for him. The ex-president is also involved in legal disputes on various other fronts.
