Former President Trump in a video deposition calls the allegations of sexual battery and defamation made by writer E. Jean Carroll “the most ridiculous, disgusting story” and “made up.”
“If it did happen, it would have been reported within minutes,” Trump said in the deposition played before the court Wednesday in the civil trial stemming from Carroll’s allegations.
“It’s the most ridiculous, disgusting story. It’s just made up,” he added according to The Associated Press.
Carroll is suing Trump after the former president publicly denied the allegations that he raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. Trump claimed Carroll was making up the claim to sell books.
Lawyers for Carroll played about 30 minutes of Trump’s deposition, which was taken in October, in court. It included the former president’s denial of the attack.
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Carroll’s lawyers played the Trump deposition after it was revealed by Trump’s legal team that they did not plan to call any witnesses. Of the two possible witnesses they could have called, one was Trump.
The other was psychiatrist Edgar Nace, but Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina said the team decided not to put Nace on the stand after learning health issues would prevent him from testifying.
Trump has not attended the case, and the court saga has played out as he launches his third White House campaign.
Carroll’s testimony in the case concluded on Monday, including other witnesses who testified on behalf of the writer. It included testimony from a longtime friend of Carroll’s, who said the writer called her in the immediate aftermath of the alleged attack and that she urged Carroll to go to the police. It also included testimony from a woman who claimed Trump molested her on an airplane in the 1970s.
Carroll’s team could finish arguing its case this week, with a number of witnesses — including a former writer for People magazine who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in 2005 — still possibly set to be called.