Trump Ordered To Sit For Deposition In E. Jean Carroll Rape Accusation Lawsuit

A judge denied Donald Trump‘s efforts to delay a defamation lawsuit brought against him by Elle magazine writer E. Jean Carroll and required the former president to testify under oath next week.

Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. Trump has denied her claims, calling them a “hoax and a lie.”

“I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is, other than it seems she got a picture of me many years ago, with her husband, shaking my hand on a reception line at a celebrity charity event,” Trump said. “She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City Department Store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her … Now all I have to do is go through years more of legal nonsense in order to clear my name of her and her lawyer’s phony attacks on me. This can only happen to ‘Trump’!”

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said in his decision that Trump’s argument did not meet the requirements for a pause in legal proceedings.

Trump said that he should not have to participate before his appeal based on whether or not he was acting as the president when he denied Carroll’s allegations is decided upon. If it is determined that he was, Trump will be able to utilize the immunity given to government employees against civil suits under the Westfall Act and the lawsuit’s defendant will become the United States.

Kaplan also cited the ages of Trump and Carroll, who are 76 and 78 respectively, as a reason for allowing the proceedings to move forward.

“The defendant should not be permitted to run out the clock on the plaintiff’s attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong,” Kaplan said.