Former President Donald Trump‘s lawyer, Alina Habba, argued in a court filing on Sunday that he should not be forced to testify under oath in his defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll.
Trump, the current frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, faces a second defamation trial by Carroll, a former Elle columnist, that is scheduled to begin on January 16 as it will decide how much Trump owes in damages. A civil trial that concluded last May found that Trump was liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, who ultimately was rewarded $5 million. The accusation of defamation against Trump follows the former president’s denial that he sexually assaulted her at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s in New York City. In 2019, the former president said Carroll was “not my type,” suggesting she made up the allegation. In this lawsuit, Carroll is seeking $10 million in damages.
On Friday, Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan asked U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is overseeing the case, to impose a set of rules regarding Trump’s testimony and behavior, citing the former president’s previous behavior in his New York civil fraud trial.
Last week, the former president vowed to do just that, saying outside a New York courtroom: “Yeah I’m going to go to it, and I’m going to explain I don’t know who the hell she is.” However, it is unclear if he will be in court as Trump requested on Friday the trial be postponed as he will be traveling for the funeral of his mother-in-law who died last week.
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