A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to block the so-called Access Hollywood tape from being played at the upcoming trial in a defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a New York author who claims he raped her in the 1990s.
(Bloomberg) — A federal judge rejected former President Donald Trump’s effort to block the so-called Access Hollywood tape from being played at the upcoming trial in a defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, a New York author who claims he raped her in the 1990s.
The ruling Friday by US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan also denied Trump’s effort to block Carroll from calling as witnesses two other women who accused him of assaulting them in the years before he got into politics.
Trump had argued that the 2005 hot-mic recording of him making unguarded remarks to Access Hollywood host Billy Bush wasn’t relevant to the trial. On the tape, Trump made crude comments about famous men being allowed to grope women at will.
Kaplan said Friday that Trump’s alleged conduct with women is central to Carroll’s claim, even in a defamation suit.
She “must prove that Mr. Trump sexually assaulted her” to prevail in the case, the judge said.
Trump’s lawyer Joseph Tacopina declined to comment on the ruling.
The former president, who has announced he’s running again in 2024, defended his Access Hollywood remarks during his deposition by Carroll’s lawyer. Trump said it’s “historically” true that stars “can do anything.”
“And you consider yourself to be a star?” Carroll’s lawyer asked him, according to an excerpt of the testimony that was filed in the case last month.
“I think you can say that, yeah,” Trump said.
Carroll went public in 2019 with her claim that Trump raped her in a department store dressing room more than two decades ago, and sued him for defamation after he called her a liar from the White House.
Trump has denied attacking or defaming her, saying his comments — accusing her fabricating the attack to sell a book and falsely saying she made similar allegations against other men — were a fair response to her allegation.
Read More: Trump to Face Three Assault Accusers If He Loses Legal Skirmish
Kaplan also said he’ll allow the testimony of two women who went public with sexual assault claims against him before the 2016 presidential election: Jessica Leeds, who claims Trump groped her when they sat next to each other on a flight three decades ago, and Natasha Stoynoff, who alleges he attacked her at his Mar-a-Lago resort when she was interviewing him for People magazine in 2005.
The judge said Trump’s attempt to minimize the similarity between his alleged actions with Carroll and his alleged actions with the other women “is not very persuasive.”
“The alleged acts are far more similar than different in the important aspects,” Kaplan said. “In each case, the alleged victim claims that Mr. Trump suddenly attacked her sexually.”
The case is Carroll v. Trump, 20-cv-07311, US District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
(Updates with detail from the ruling.)
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