A federal judge in New York postponed the planned release of over three dozen pages of former President Donald Trump's deposition in a lawsuit accusing him of violence and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims he raped her in the mid-1990s.
Carroll claims Trump defamed her in 2019 when he denied raping her in a changing room at Manhattan's Bergdorf Goodman department shop in the 1990s.
While president, Trump stated that Carroll was lying and that her claims were motivated by a political motive and a desire to boost book sales.
The disclosure of that part of Trump's deposition had already been mandated by Judge Lewis Kaplan.
In that initial order, Kaplan noted that last month, Trump's attorneys had been given three days to respond to counsel for author Carroll over whether or not the pages should remain totally or partially sealed.
On Monday, in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Trump's attorneys asked Kaplan for three more days to respond and explain why they opposed unsealing the pages.
In order to keep the records private for the time being, Kaplan consented to grant Trump's legal team the required time.
In his decision issued Monday, Kaplan stated that Carroll's lawyers alerted Trump's attorneys on December 19 that they were expected under the practice of his court chambers to file a letter explaining the need to seal or redact portions of Trump's deposition within three days.
Trump, according to Kaplan, "did not do so, and has made no effort to justify the continued sealing of his deposition."
The judge then directed the court clerk to unseal all portions of Trump's deposition that had been attached as an exhibit to Carroll's December submission.
A letter from Trump's lawyer Michael Madaio to the judge appeared on the public court docket shortly after Kaplan's decision.
Madaio gave Kaplan three days to file another letter challenging the release of Trump's deposition excerpts.
Carroll first sued Trump for defamation in New York state court in late 2019. However, the civil lawsuit was transferred to federal court a year later as part of the Justice Department's effort to replace Trump as the defendant with the U.S. government.
Carroll filed a second complaint against Trump in October after he posted a scathing social media post about her rape claim on Oct. 12, which she claimed was another act of defamation.
With the recent passage of New York's Adult Survivors Act, which gave individuals a one-year window to make civil claims of sexual assault even if those allegations fell outside the usual statute of limitations, Carroll was permitted to assert a battery count in that new complaint as well.
Carroll's initial defamation lawsuit trial has been set for April 10. It is currently unclear whether the second case will be heard concurrently with the trial or separately.
