An anonymously empaneled rape trial jury will watch depositions of the disgraced former President’s sexual assault accusers in New York’s Superior Court next week unless his lawyer’s last-ditch effort to block them fails.
Donald Trump’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, has filed an objection in the case alleging rape and sexual assault.
Portions of his deposition have been released publicly, but the new filing alludes to certain portions apparently referencing other women who have accused him of sexual assault.
Tacopina notes that the plaintiff E. Jean Carroll has asked for certain portions to be presented in court and that his client is requesting for certain other portions to be read in response. Two of them are explosive testimony from women that the leading GOP candidate for the 2024 nomination assaulted them.
Documents already filed in the case include depositions from two other women, former People Magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, whose misfortune was an upgrade to first class on a flight, who have made similar allegations. The former People writer said in her deposition that Trump invited her to see a room in Mar-a-Lago:
“I walked into the room first and I’m looking around the room wondering what does he want to show me. Nice room, what does he want to show me. Then I hear the door close behind me and I turn around and he’s right here (indicating), and he grabs my shoulders and pushes me against this wall and starts kissing me.”
Asked specifically about the journalist Stoynoff, he responded:
“I do remember that there was some woman that…wrote a wonderful story and a long time later…said that I was aggressive with her.”
The Republican presidential candidate dismisses the allegations by Leeds as false in his filings because she can’t nail down specifics of the flight on which she says it occurred:
“I believe she said she didn’t know where the plane was, where the flight was…I don’t remember ever sitting next to her. I think she made that up, too. But she couldn’t find tickets…”
Trump was deposed in the case last year and was asked questions about the alleged incident in a Bergdorf-Goodman dressing room, where Carroll says he pushed her against the wall and proceeded to sexually assault and rape her.
For example, Carroll would like the jury to hear portions in which Trump admits he did not investigate the claims when she first made them, perhaps by contacting the department store to ask about security tapes.
In response, Trump would like the jury to hear the portions in which he argues that he could not examine the matter because the plaintiff has not named a specific date the incident took place.
There are two more segments of the former president’s deposition that he does not want to be read in court and several additional portions he is requesting to be shared with the rape trial jury:
- Trump was discussing his friendship with Roger Ailes and “a television executive during a certain time period.” In it, Trump discusses friendship with both Ailes and Bob Wright in the highlighted portion of the deposition,
- References to Trump’s other legal troubles, what Tacopina refers to as “other political attacks that have been made against him.”
In Trump’s deposition, he was asked whether he has ever kissed a woman without consent and replied that he can’t recall any complaints.
When asked if he has ever touched a woman sexually “on her breast or buttocks or any other sexual part” without consent, he responded, “Well, I will tell you no, but you may have some people like your client that lie.”
When it comes to the testimony from Jessica Leeds, Trump’s legal team argues that if she says it was going on for such a long time, she must be lying since surely she could have gotten up and walked away, and yet when she says she did eventually run away, he wonders, where would she have gone, another seat?
Leeds says, in fact, that she was flying coach, and a stewardess asked if she’d like to come to sit in first class, moving her next to a gentleman who introduced himself as Donald Trump. As for details:
“I was coming into New York, to Laguardia because that’s where my car was…I think it was ’79.”
What does she say Trump did?
“[H]e was with his hands grabbing me, trying to kiss me, grabbing my breasts, pulling me towards him, pulling himself on to me. It was kind of a struggle going on…It was when he started putting his hand up my skirt that I realized that nobody was going to save me but me, and I was on the aisle, I managed to wheel my way out of the chair, and grabbed my purse and I went back to my seat in the back.”
Tacopina’s new filing argues that Trump’s testimony regarding whether he has sexually assaulted other women is irrelevant “and cannot be admissible propensity evidence because he did not make any admission with regard to such inquiries.”
He also complains that the segments Carroll wants to be presented in court are only the descriptions of the alleged sexual assaults and not Trump’s denials; in his submitted copy of the transcript, Trump’s denials (in much fuller length) are highlighted to also be shared with the rape trial jury.
Find out more here:
New filing: "Carroll v. Trump"
[full entry below 👇]
Doc #123: ***SELECTED PARTIES***DECLARATION of Roberta A. Kaplan in Support re: 121 MOTION in Limine .. Document filed by E. Jean…PDF: https://t.co/UL3KmxnVUM pic.twitter.com/zplkoFpbsy
— Big Cases Bot (@big_cases) April 22, 2023
His letter can be read in full here, and the highlighted deposition portions are here. Deposition portions from other alleged victims are on Pacer here.
