Trump Must Sit For Deposition In Defamation Lawsuit, Judge R

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That's a bad thing.

Questioned for a lawsuit, former President Donald Trump angrily hurled insults and threatened to sue the columnist who accused him of raping her in a department store in the 1990s, according to excerpts of his videotaped testimony unsealed by a court on Friday.

Portions of his 5 1/2-hour October deposition in a lawsuit filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll were released publicly after a federal judge rejected his lawyers’ request that it remained sealed.

“She said that I did something to her that never took place. There was no anything. I know nothing about this nut job,” he said, according to the transcript.

The excerpts reveal a contentious battle between Trump and Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, who questioned him as Trump called the former longtime Elle magazine columnist the perpetrator of “a complete scam” in which she described the rape as she “was promoting a really crummy book.”

“I will sue her after this is over, and that’s the thing I really look forward to doing. And I’ll sue you too,” he told Kaplan.

The release of excerpts from the deposition came the same day as Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, unrelated to the lawyer, also refused a request by Trump’s attorneys to toss out two lawsuits by Carroll alleging defamation and rape. An April trial is planned.

A federal judge says former President Donald Trump has missed his chance to use his DNA to try to prove he didn't rape a longtime magazine advice columnist, clearing away a potential roadblock to an April trial.

Judge Lewis A. Kaplan on Wednesday rejected the 11th-hour offer by Trump's legal team to provide a DNA sample to rebut claims E. Jean Carroll first made publicly in a 2019 book.

Kaplan said that lawyers for Trump and Carroll had over three years to make DNA an issue in the case and that both chose not to do so.

He said it would almost surely delay the trial scheduled to start April 25 to reopen the DNA issue four months after the deadline passed to litigate concerns over trial evidence and just weeks before trial.

Carroll's lawyers have sought Trump's DNA sample for three years to compare it with stains found on the dress Carroll wore the day she says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996. An analysis of DNA on the dress concluded it did contain traces of an unknown man's DNA.

Trump has denied knowing Carroll and said repeatedly, and sometimes angrily, that he never raped Carroll and that she was making the claim to stoke sales of her book.

After refusing to provide Trump's DNA sample, his lawyers recently switched tactics, saying they would provide his DNA if Carroll's lawyers turned over the full DNA report on the dress.

Kaplan wrote in an order that Trump had provided no persuasive reason to relieve him of the consequences of his failure to seek the full DNA report in a timely fashion.

And the judge noted that the report did not find evidence of sperm cells and that reopening the dispute would raise a "complicated new subject into this case that both sides elected not to pursue over a period of years."

He said that a positive match of Trump's DNA to that on the dress would prove only that there had been an encounter between Trump and Carroll on a day when she wore the dress, but that it would not prove or disprove that a rape occurred and might prove entirely inconclusive.

Kaplan added: "His conditional invitation to open a door that he kept closed for years threatens to change the nature of a trial for which both parties now have been preparing for years. Whether Mr. Trump's application is intended for a dilatory purpose or not, the potential prejudice to Ms. Carroll is apparent."

Former President Donald Trump sought Wednesday to delay a writer's defamation and battery case that is scheduled to go on trial this month, arguing the "deluge" of media coverage of his recent indictment on 34 criminal charges makes fairness impossible.

The trial is scheduled to begin April 25 in Manhattan federal court but Trump's attorney, Joe Tacopina, asked the judge for a "cooling off" period in an overnight filing.

"President Trump can only receive a fair trial in a calmer media environment than the one created by the New York County District Attorney," Tacopina wrote in a letter to the judge asking for a four-week delay.

Trump is not required to attend the trial. The judge has given Trump's attorneys until next week to inform the court whether he will attend.