Wednesday was not a great day for former President Donald Trump.
In addition to answering questions under oath in relation to a lawsuit filed by a magazine columnist who claims he raped her, news came out that 60% of Americans believe he should testify for the House Committee investigating the Capitol riot.
Rape allegations deposition
According to NBC 4 in Washington D.C., Trump gave a deposition Wednesday regarding the E. Jean Carroll lawsuit. It gave “Carroll’s lawyers a chance to interrogate Trump about the assault allegations, as well as statements he made in 2019 when she told her story publicly for the first time.”
NBC 4 reported that Trump has called Carroll’s rape allegation “a hoax and a lie.” He has also recently posted about her on his social media platform, Truth Social.
Carroll – who like, Trump, is now in her 70s – alleged that Trump sexually assaulted her in the 1990s when she released her memoir “What Do We Need Men For?” in 2019, prior to filing the lawsuit. This February, Audacy reported that Carroll was seeking a DNA sample from Trump.
Both NBC 4 and The New York Times explained that Trump has tried for years to delay the lawsuit, which was filed while he was in office.
For example, “Attorney General William P. Barr, abruptly intervened on Mr. Trump’s behalf in September 2020, citing a law intended to protect federal employees from litigation stemming from their official duties,” said The Times. Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan rejected the Justice Department’s attempt to intervene in the case.
Last month Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, asked Kaplan to delay the deposition while a key question about the suit was considered on appeal. Kaplan denied the request and a trial is scheduled for Feb. 6.
Details about Trump’s Wednesday deposition “weren’t immediately disclosed,” said NBC 4.
“My client was pleased to set the record straight today,” Habba said Wednesday, according to the outlet. “This case is nothing more than a political ploy like many others in the long list of witch hunts against Donald Trump.”
“We’re pleased that on behalf of our client, E. Jean Carroll, we were able to take Donald Trump’s deposition today. We are not able to comment further,” said a spokesman for Ms. Carroll’s lawyers at the firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink said in a statement, according to The New York Times.
Carroll was expected to be questioned by Trump’s lawyers last Friday.
“Neither her attorneys nor Trump’s have responded to questions about how that deposition went,” said NBC 4. Per The New York Times, the court has imposed a routine order that would allow both Trump and Carroll to keep their depositions confidential throughout the pretrial discovery process.
Going forward, Carroll’s lawyers have said that she plans to file another case against Mr. Trump under a new New York state law that allows adult sexual assault victims a one-time opportunity to sue, regardless of the statute of limitations. The Times said that case will likely end up before Kaplan under the federal court’s rules on related cases.
“The question whether Mr. Trump in fact raped Ms. Carroll is central to this case,” Judge Kaplan wrote last week. “But it will be central also to the new case.”
However, NBC 4 noted that Trump “hasn’t faced any criminal charges related to Carroll's allegations, and any prosecution is unlikely.”
Jan. 6 investigation
Trump’s ongoing legal battles include the House Select Committee’s investigation of the Capitol riot last Jan. 6. According to The Washington Post, the committee is expected to issue a subpoena for testimony and documents from Trump by the end of this week.
“In a 14-page response to the committee last week, Trump declined to say whether he’d cooperate with the subpoena and instead repeated false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election – baseless allegations that fueled the attack on the U.S. Capitol,” said the outlet.
If Trump does resist, the committee could face challenges in trying to get him to comply. At the same time, his refusal could give the Justice Department a stronger case to prosecute him.
According to Monmouth University poll results released Wednesday, 60% of Americans think Trump should have to testify before the House Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack. As one would expect, a higher percentage of Democrats (89%) think he should testify compared to Republicans (34%) and 61% of Independents think he should.
“If Trump does testify, partisans of all stripes agree that his appearance should occur at a public hearing – 77% overall, including [eight] in 10 Democrats and independents and nearly two-thirds of Republicans,” said Monmouth University.
MSNBC also reported that on Wednesday, a federal judge in Southern California ruled “for the third time that documents that former Trump lawyer John Eastman sought to withhold from the House Jan. 6 committee,” must be handed over to congressional investigators.
Other issues
Apart from the rape allegations and Jan. 6 investigation, Trump has also been under investigation for the way he handled confidential government documents.
According to The New York Times, his potential interference in Georgia’s election results is also under investigation by the Fulton County, Ga., district attorney. Trump “has not been accused of wrongdoing in those inquiries,” said the outlet.
Last month, New York Attorney General Letitia James also sued Trump and the Trump Organization over alleged financial fraud.
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