Donald Trump threatened to sue the lawyer representing the woman who has accused him of raping her in a department store in the 1990s during his deposition in a federal lawsuit accusing him of defamation, according to an unsealed transcript of his interview in the case.
A federal judge has unsealed portions of the former president’s transcript from a taped deposition at his Mar-a-Lago compound in October of 2022 following E Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against him, revealing Mr Trump lashing out at his accuser as a “wack job”, “mentally sick” and a “nut job”.
At issue in the transcript is a statement on his Truth Social platform that he admitted to writing in October of 2022, blasting US District Judge Lewis A Kaplan for rejecting Mr Trump’s attempt to delay his scheduled testimony that month. Ms Carroll’s federal lawsuit has accused him of defamation after he dismissed her allegation that he allegedly raped her by claiming she was using a false story to sell books.
“There’s something wrong with her in my opinion,” he said during the deposition, according to the transcript.
He continues: “But it’s a false accusation. Never happened, never would happen. And I posted and I will continue to post until such time as – and then 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 because this is – how many cases do you have? Many, many cases, and I know the statements that were made – that you made. ‘Keep Trump busy because this is the way you defeat him, to keep him busy with litigation’. So I will be suing you, also, but I’ll be suing her very strongly as soon as this case ends.”
Following his comments, an attorney for Ms Caroll asks, “Are you done?”
“Yeah,” he replied.
On his Truth Social on 12 October, 2020, the former president wrote that the case is a “complete con job” and claimed that he did not know Ms Carroll at all.
“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,” he wrote.
He continued: “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. It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.”
In his deposition, he said he decided to use the word “swooned” because it was not “politically correct” for him to use the “f-word”.
“Great statement,” he said. “I wrote it all myself.”
He said he did not discuss writing or publishing the statement with anyone before posting it to his Truth Social account.
“I’m not Joe Biden,” he said.
