A video deposition in Donald Trump's civil rape trial was released on Friday (May 5) and showed the former U.S. president defending private comments he made in 2005 about grabbing women sexually without asking.
Trump was asked by a lawyer for his accuser, the writer E. Jean Carroll, about the 2005 "Access Hollywood" tape, where he said on a hot microphone that "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything... Grab 'em by the p***."
"Historically, that's true, with stars... if you look over the last million years," Trump said in the video deposition taken last October and shown to the jury on Thursday (May 4), the seventh day of the rape trial in Manhattan federal court.
The "Access Hollywood" tape was first made public in October 2016, a month before Trump was elected U.S. president.
Carroll, 79, has testified that Trump, 76, raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and then tarred her reputation and career by lying about it online.
A social media and marketing expert hired by Carroll told jurors on Thursday that the cost to repair the reputational damage of Trump's statements could range from $368,000 to $2.8 million. Carroll is seeking unspecified damages.
Trump's lawyers rested their case on Thursday without calling any witnesses, paving the way for closing arguments on Monday (May 8) after a break on Friday.
Trump has not been in the Manhattan courtroom so far, but on Thursday he told reporters during a trip to Ireland that he would probably attend.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has said he could not have raped Carroll, because "she's not my type" and has called the case politically motivated.
'IT'S MARLA,' TRUMP MISTAKENLY SAYS OF ACCUSER'S PHOTO
In an excerpt on Thursday from the October video deposition by Carroll's lawyer Roberta Kaplan, who is not related to Judge Kaplan, Trump also mistook Carroll for an ex-wife in a black-and-white photograph that shows him speaking to people at an event.
"It's Marla," he said, referring to his second wife Marla Maples.
When Kaplan asked him if he was saying the picture depicted Maples, Trump's lawyer Alina Habba said, "No, that's Carroll."
Carroll's lawyers have argued that the episode, made public in January, undermines Trump's argument that Carroll was not his type.
In the deposition, taken last October at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump reiterated his denials of having raped Carroll, whom he called "mentally sick."
"You know it's not true too," Trump said, addressing Kaplan. "You're a political operative also. You're a disgrace."
Judge Kaplan warned last week that Trump could face more legal problems if he kept discussing the case. He did not address Trump's latest comments before trial resumed on Thursday.
The trial is expected to extend into next week.
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