President-elect Donald Trump has been ordered to answer questions under oath for up to four hours as part of his lawsuit against ABC and host George Stephanopoulos.
Trump filed the defamation suit earlier this year, after Stephanopoulos claimed on an ABC broadcast in March that a jury found him civilly liable for raping former Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll at a New York department store in the 1990s.
A jury instead found Trump liable for sexually abusing Carroll and defaming her by denying the assault occurred.
However, Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the trial, wrote in July 2023: “The definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of ‘rape’ in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere.”
On Friday, US Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid ordered Trump and Stephanopoulos to appear for depositions next week. Trump was ordered to appear for an in-person deposition in South Florida, but Reid allowed Stephanopoulos to participate remotely.
“Plaintiff’s deposition will be limited to four hours and shall take place in-person and in this district,” Reid wrote in the two-page order. “Plaintiff’s counsel shall schedule the deposition to take place the week of December 16, 2024.”
“Defendant George Stephanopoulos’ deposition will also be limited to four hours and shall be scheduled to take place the week of December 16, 2024,” the lawyer said. “Counsel will meet and confer regarding deposition logistics for the Defendants, including whether they will be remote or in person.”
Reid’s order goes on to state, “With Election Day now behind us, there is no reason for any further delay.”
On Friday evening, Newsweek emailed Trump lawyer Alejandro Brito to request comment.
Reid expressed sympathy for defense counsel Nathan Siegel’s “frustration” with the president-elect avoiding a deposition at a court hearing hours before the order was issued, saying that Trump had a “fairly good argument” to delay during the election but now “should be able to make himself available,” according to NBC News.
After Siegel offered to hold the deposition near Mar-a-Lago, Brito reportedly stated that he would “do everything in my power to make the president available,” but warned that “there are limitations to my ability to do so,” including logistical concerns with the Secret Service.
In July, a federal court rejected ABC and Stephanopoulos’ attempt to dismiss the suit based on the argument that Kaplan’s remarks meant the rape claim was “substantially true”. Last month, both parties agreed to move the jury trial’s start date from April 7 to June 9.
Unlike some other legal proceedings that have been dropped or delayed due to the president-elect’s impending return to the White House, the ABC suit is likely to continue during Trump’s second term because he is the plaintiff and the case is civil in nature.