Donald Trump has responded to being ordered to sit for a deposition in a libel case brought by a columnist who claims he raped her in a department store in the mid-1990s.
The former president issued a statement again denying that he had attacked E Jean Carroll in New York’s Bergdorf Goodman store in 1996, adding that “she’s not my type”.
Earlier on Wednesday, a judge ruled that he must sit for a deposition in New York as part of a defamation case brought by Carroll after Mr Trump called her a liar following her original accusation, in 2019.
On Wednesday evening, in a statement posted on his Truth Social website, Mr Trump wrote: “This ‘Ms Bergdorf Goodman’ case is a complete con job, and our legal system in this Country, but especially in New York State (just look at Peekaboo James) is a broken disgrace.”
He added: “I don’t know this woman, have no idea who she is ... 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. And while I’m not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!”
“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’!”
Roberta Kaplan, Ms Carroll’s attorney, said she was pleased with the judge’s ruling and looked forward to filing new claims next month “and moving forward to trial with all dispatch” after New York state passed the Adult Survivors Act, allowing her to sue for damages for the alleged rape without the statute of limitations blocking it.
When asked about Mr Trump’s statement, a spokesperson for Kaplan’s firm, Kaplan Hecker & Fink, said the “latest statement from Donald Trump obviously does not merit a response”.
Ms Carroll’s lawsuit claims that Mr Trump damaged her reputation in 2019 when he denied raping her. Mr Trump’s legal team has been trying to quash the lawsuit by arguing that the Republican was just doing his job as president when he denied the allegations, including when he dismissed his accuser as “not my type”.
Mr Trump doubled down on the comment in his statement Wednesday, saying: “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type! She has no idea what day, what week, what month, what year, or what decade this so-called ‘event’ supposedly took place. The reason she doesn’t know is because it never happened, and she doesn’t want to get caught up with details or facts that can be proven wrong.”
Ms Carroll is scheduled to be deposed on Friday.
