E. Jean Carroll (left) and former President Donald Trump (right).
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Excerpts of Trump’s deposition were released Friday in author E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case.
Asked by Carroll’s lawyer if he ever forcibly kissed a woman, Trump said he “can’t think of any complaints.”
At least 26 women have accused Trump of sexual assaults dating back to the 1970s; he has denied them all.
Donald Trump was asked by a lawyer for rape accuser E. Jean Carroll if he’d ever forcibly kissed a woman, according to newly unsealed court documents.
The former president said he was unaware of any “complaints,” according to newly-released excerpts from his deposition in Carroll’s ongoing defamation lawsuit.
The answer was surprising because at least 26 women have accused Trump of sexually assaulting him in alleged attacks going back to the 1970s.
Trump was also caught on the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape bragging about grabbing and kissing women without their consent.
Trump has repeatedly denied any accusations of sexual assault, calling Carroll and others liars; he has brushed off the Access Hollywood tape as “locker room banter.”
“Have you ever kissed a woman without her consent?” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, asked Trump during the October 19 sworn deposition, which he taped from Mar-a-Lago.
“Well, I don’t — I can’t think of any complaints,” Trump answered, according to the transcript unsealed Friday.
“But no. I mean, I don’t think so,” he said.
Then he added, “I think it’s an inappropriate question, but I don’t think so.”
An excerpt from Donald Trump’s October, 2022 deposition in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case.
Insider
Carroll sued Trump in federal court in Manhattan in November 2019, after he publicly denied her accusation that he’d raped her, calling her a liar and saying she was “not my type.”
A federal appeals court in DC weighing if Carroll’s lawsuit can proceed.
The longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine had come forward earlier that year with a memoir and a front-page New York magazine story alleging that Trump, who’d recognized her from her television appearances, had chatted her up at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-90s.
He forced himself on her in a dressing room, she alleges. While she never told the police about the incident, she did immediately tell friends. Carroll’s legal team has requested a sample of Trump’s DNA in hopes of comparing it to a sample from the dress Carroll says she wore that day.
Carroll filed a second lawsuit against Trump in November, adding an accusation of battery under New York’s new Adult Survivors Act.
Trump’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.