Former President Donald Trump answered questions under oath Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, a magazine columnist who says the Republican raped her in the mid-1990s in a department store dressing room. The deposition gave Carol’s lawyers a chance to question Trump about the assault allegations, as well as statements he made in 2019 when he first publicly told her story. Details of how the filing went were not immediately released. “We are pleased that on behalf of our client, E. Jean Carroll, we were able to receive Donald Trump’s deposition today. We cannot comment further,” said a spokesperson for the law firm representing her, Kaplan Hecker & Fink. Trump said Carroll’s rape claim is a “hoax and a lie.” His legal team worked for years to delay his filing in the lawsuit, which was filed while he was still president. A federal judge last week rejected Trump’s request for a new delay, saying it could not “overcome the plaintiff’s effort to find a remedy for what is alleged to be a grave mistake.” Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the filing. Carroll was due to be questioned by Trump’s lawyers last Friday. Neither her lawyers nor Trump have responded to questions about how that deposition went. Attorneys have not disclosed whether the deposition was taken in person or remotely, via video. Trump was in Florida on Wednesday. The lawsuit is pending in a New York court. Anything Trump said during his testimony could potentially be used as evidence in an upcoming civil trial. He has not faced criminal charges related to Carroll’s allegations and any prosecution is unlikely. The deadline for criminal prosecutions for sexual assaults that occurred in the 1990s has long passed. Similar statutory time limits also applied to civil sexual assault lawsuits. As a result, Carroll chose to sue Trump for defamation over comments he made in 2019, when he denied any wrongdoing. He maintains his denials and the attacks on her credibility and character damaged her reputation. But New York lawmakers recently gave sexual assault survivors a year to sue their attackers over past assaults. Carroll’s lawyer told the court he plans to file such a lawsuit against Trump after that window opens in late November. According to Carroll’s account, she ran into Trump while the two were shopping at the Bergdorf Goodman store across Fifth Avenue from Trump Tower. At the time, Carroll was on television as the host of a counseling program, “Ask E. Jean.” He said the two made friendly jokes as she tried to help him pick out a gift. But when they were briefly alone in a dressing room, she said he pulled down her pantyhose and raped her. In a recent statement, Trump called the story “a complete hoax.” “I don’t know this woman, I have no idea who she is, except that she apparently took a picture of me years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand in a reception line at a celebrity charity event,” he said. Trump. .
