2023-05-06 00:56:04
Sometimes vehement, sometimes hesitant: this is how Donald Trump appears in the video of his testimony released Thursday, May 4 to the jurors of the civil trial in New York, where the former American president is accused of rape. Made public on Friday, the video was broadcast by many American media.
For forty-eight minutes, we see Donald Trump, blue tie and white shirt under a dark jacket, defending himself and answering questions from Roberta Kaplan, the plaintiff’s lawyer, the former columnist for the magazine Elle, E. Jean Carroll.
The ex-journalist, now 79, accused Donald Trump in a 2019 book of raping her in a fitting room in the lingerie department of a New York luxury department store, Bergdorf Goodman , in the mid-1990s. She then sued him for defamation, then in November 2022 for rape in a civil action.
The Republican billionaire did not show up for the trial which began last week. In his absence, extracts from the video, recorded in the proceedings in October 2022, were broadcast during the proceedings.
“It’s very vague”
“This is the most ridiculous, disgusting story. It’s an invention from scratch.”he assures regarding the accusations, qualifying E. Jean Caroll as “liar” and of ” sick “.
In his deposition, Donald Trump reiterates that he does not know the journalist and insistently reaffirms that she is not ” not [son] genre ». But, once the lawyer shows him a photo where he is in front of E. Jean Carroll at a party, years before their alleged meeting in 1996, he confuses the plaintiff with his ex-wife Marla. His lawyer then intervenes: ” It is [E. Jean] Carroll », she corrects him. First taken aback, the ex-president then assures: “It’s very vague. »
The former president is also invited to react to his remarks in a video, which has become famous, where we hear him in 2005 boasting of kissing and touching the women he likes as he pleases, and to add: “When you are a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Catch them by the pussy. »
“It is historically true for the stars (…) if you look at the last few million years, I think that’s largely true, not always, but largely whether we lament it or not.”he explains. “And do you consider yourself a star? », asks the lawyer for E. John Carroll. “I think you can say it, yes”he replies.
Several journalists following the trial had asked the presiding judge on Thursday to make the video public, but the latter decided that it was up to the parties to do so.
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