Trump, accused of defamation, summoned to testify in New York

Donald Trump He is summoned to testify this Wednesday in a New York court in a defamation case initiated in 2019 by the journalist E. Jean Carroll, who accuses the former US president of having raped her in the 1990s.

A federal court judge in Manhattan on October 12 dismissed a request by Trump to postpone his statement to justice, after three years filing appeals against that accusation.

But last Wednesday, New York Judge Lewis Kaplan summoned Caroll, 78, and Trump, 76, to testify respectively on October 14 and 19.

It is unknown if the former journalist testified on Friday and none of the lawyers for both parties responded to the AFP emails.

Carroll shared a photo of his attorney Roberta Kaplan on Twitter on Tuesday with the caption “Carroll versus Trump” and wished Kaplan “GOOD LUCK TOMORROW.” She later deleted the tweet.

In this defamation case, E. Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, filed a civil lawsuit against Trump in November 2019 in New York.

The woman accuses the former president of having defamed by calling it a “total lie” in June 2019 his accusations of having raped her in the dressing room of a New York department store in the mid-1990s.

The then Republican president (2017-2021) said he neither knew her nor was “her type.”

The question of whether Trump he was to be represented by the US government at the trial, as he was president at the time of his statements, the procedural proceedings were delayed.

According to several media outlets on Tuesday, the former president’s lawyers have always assured that their client was protected by his immunity, in particular for the defamatory statements he would have made during his term.

the digital medium Vice News claims, however, that the Republican mogul mocked Carroll’s rape allegations on October 12 on his Truth Social network.

According to lawyers quoted by Vice News, the plaintiff could allege that Trump has defamed her again, this time as a simple citizen.

Judge Kaplan indicated last week that Carroll could seek damages from Trump for the alleged violation as early as Nov. 24, once a New York State law takes effect that allows civil lawsuits to be filed regardless of statute of limitations. .