LUC COHEN and PADRAIC HALPIN
JURORS in Donald Trump’s civil rape trial saw a video deposition in which the former U.S. president mistook a photograph of E. Jean Carroll, his accuser, for his ex-wife Marla Maples.
Carroll, 79, has testified that Trump, 76, raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and then tarred her reputation and career by lying about it online.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican residential nomination, has said he could not have raped Carroll, because “she’s not my type” and has called the case politically motivated.
He will not testify at the trial and has not been in the Manhattan courtroom so far, but on Thursday told reporters during a trip to Ireland that he would “probably” attend.
In a video excerpt of a combative deposition by Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan played on Thursday, Trump was asked about a black-and-white photograph that shows him speaking to people at an event.
“It’s Marla,” he said, referring to his second wife.
When Kaplan asked him if he was saying the picture depicted Maples, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said, “No, that’s Carroll.”
Carroll’s lawyers have argued that the episode undermines Trump’s argument that Carroll was not his type.
In the deposition, taken last October at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump reiterated his denials of having raped Carroll, whom he called “mentally sick.”
“You know it’s not true too,” Trump said, addressing Kaplan. “You’re a political operative also. You’re a disgrace.”
Earlier on Thursday, during a visit to a resort he owns in southwestern Ireland, Trump dismissed what he called untrue allegations “against a rich guy.”
“I have to go back for a woman that made a false accusation about me, and I have a judge who is extremely hostile,” Trump told reporters while playing golf at the Doonbeg resort.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s lawyer, warned last week that Trump could face more legal problems if he kept discussing the case. He did not address Trump’s latest comments before trial resumed on Thursday.
The trial is expected to extend into next week.
Carroll, a former advice columnist at Elle magazine, said during three days of testimony and cross-examination that Trump slammed her against the wall in either 1995 or 1996, put his fingers into her vagina and then inserted his penis.
