NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump mistook a 1980s photograph of New York author E. Jean Carroll, who claims he raped her more than two decades ago, for an image of his ex-wife Marla Maples during a deposition, according to a partially unsealed transcript in Carroll’s defamation suit.
The slip-up during his Oct. 19 testimony could be used by Carroll at trial to undercut the claim by Trump, who denies the rape allegation, that she isn’t his “type.” The testimony was cited by her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, in a redacted Jan. 12 filing made public on Wednesday.
Carroll, a former Elle magazine advice columnist, in 2019 went public with her claim that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. She sued Trump for defamation after he called her a liar from the White House. He doubled down in an Oct. 12 post on his Truth Social platform.
