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Oct. 19 (UPI) -- After years of delaying it, former President Donald Trump is scheduled to be questioned under oath Wednesday in a defamation suit brought by E. Jean Carroll. Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in a fitting room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the 1990s. Carroll's defamation lawsuit was filed in November 2019 after Trump denied the rape allegation and accused Carroll of lying about it.
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Southern District of New York U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan last week shut down Trump's effort to delay being deposed in the defamation case. Trump was ordered to appear under oath and be questioned by Carroll's attorneys.
Describing the alleged rape, Carroll said Trump pulled down her tights and, "forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway -- or completely, I'm not certain -- inside me."
In 2021 Judge Kaplan denied Trump's request to delay the case and also rejected Trump's effort to have the U.S. Justice Department replace him as the defendant in Carroll's lawsuit.
Had the judge ruled for Trump it would have ended Carroll's defamation suit because the government can't be sued for defamation.
Trump's lawyers appealed Judge Kaplan's decision to the 2nd Circuit, which asked the D.C. Court of Appeals to resolve the question of whether Trump was protected as a government employee or acting outside his duties when he denied Carroll's rape accusation.
Carroll's lawsuit and rape accusation is one of several pending lawsuits and criminal investigations against Trump for alleged offenses ranging from attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election to corrupt business practices and potentially criminal mishandling of government documents.
