Donald Trump must be deposed in columnist E. Jean Carroll's rape defamation case, a federal judge ruled Wednesday

• Donald Trump must be deposed in the E. Jean Carroll rape defamation case, a judge ruled Wednesday.
• Carroll has alleged that Trump raped her in Manhattan in the mid-90s.

In a stinging decision, a federal judge in Manhattan has ordered Donald Trump to sit for a deposition next week in the 2019 defamation case brought by E. Jean Carroll, the magazine writer who has accused the former president of raping her nearly three decades ago in Manhattan.

Trump is scheduled to be deposed on October 19. He had moved to stay the deposition and Carroll's lawsuit while the DC Court of Appeals weighs if the case should be thrown out in its entirety.

In denying Trump's request for a stay, US District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote that "Mr. Trump has litigated this case since it began in 2019 with the effect and probably the purpose of delaying it," including through a failed, so-called SLAPP counterclaim.

Trump, 76, and Carroll, 78, and other witnesses as well "already are of advanced age," Kaplan wrote. Trump "should not be permitted to run the clock out on [Carroll's] attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong."

The appellate efforts may well also fail, Kaplan said, writing, "Mr. Trump has not shown the requisite strong likelihood of success" that would justify a stay.

Carroll applauded the decision — and her lawyer, Roberta "Robbie" Kaplan.

"Robbie Kaplan stands 5'1 in her socks," Carroll wrote in her "Ask E. Jean" substack shortly after the decision.

"And today this giant of a woman — the best civil rights attorney in the country — struck another blow for women who dare to speak up!"

Kaplan responded by reasserting that Carroll will be suing Trump next month under a new New York law that opens up the statute of limitations on old abuse cases.

"We are pleased that Judge Kaplan agreed with our position not to stay discovery in this case," the lawyer wrote. "We look forward to filing our case under the Adult Survivors Act and moving forward to trial with all dispatch."

Wednesday's ruling means the defamation case will move forward while the Court of Appeals continues to weigh whether Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he publicly denied Carroll's rape accusation in 2019.

If the court find that he was acting in his official capacity — and that he is therefore immune from defamation — Carroll's case would fail.

Carroll's lawyers want to ask Trump, under oath, about the alleged mid-'90s attack in the fitting room of a Bergdorf-Goodman department store in Manhattan, they have said in court filings.

They also want to ask Trump about the public denials he made after Carroll accused him of the attack in her 2019 memoir, denials at the center of her defamation lawsuit.

The then-president issued a statement saying, "I've never met this person in my life," and that the memoir "should be sold in the fiction section."

When reporters later asked him on the White House lawn about a photo of him with Carroll, he told them, "Number one, she's not my type. Number two, it never happened."

Carroll has alleged that the two statements defamed her by branding her a liar and implying she was not attractive.

Carroll is scheduled to be deposed in the case on Friday. She has said while she did not immediately report the incident to police, she told two close friends about it at the time.

She has also kept a DNA-stained dress that she wore during the incident; her lawyers have also sought to have Trump's DNA tested for comparison.

"We look forward to establishing on the record that this case is, and always has been, entirely without merit," Trump attorney Alina Habba wrote in a statement issued in response to Kaplan's decision.