Trump’s bizarre deposition may have blown his entire case: CNN analyst
Donald Trump made a bizarre statement in his videotaped deposition that may have blown up his entire case, a CNN analyst said Friday.
During his deposition in the civil case over allegations he raped author E. Jean Carroll in a Manhattan dressing room in the 1990s, Trump appeared to lean into his remarks in the explosive Access Hollywood tape that “when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the (expletive).”
In video of Trump's deposition released Friday, Roberta Kaplan, an attorney representing Carroll, is heard asking the former president that for stars if “it’s true, that they can grab women by the (expletive)?”
Trump replies: “Well if you look over the last million years that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately.”
CNN political analyst Gloria Borger said Friday during an appearance on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer that Trump’s statement suggests the behavior he described in the Access Hollywood tape is acceptable.
“Well, he excused it, I mean, he effectively said in the Access Hollywood tape, I was just telling the truth, because that's exactly what the truth is, and it kind of reminded me of after Charlottesville when Donald Trump said, ‘Well, you know, there are good people on both sides,’ Borger said.
“Well, there weren't good people on both sides in Charlottesville, and there's no ‘fortunately’ here. There's just an unfortunately, if it's true.”
Borger wasn’t done.
“What is he saying? That it's okay for some people to do this because they're stars. And by the way, I guess you could say that I'm a star too,” she said.
“So it undermined, I think, the entire case here, and I'm not an attorney, but if I were his attorney, I'd be cringing at what Donald Trump just admitted to in this in this deposition, because he kind of said, ‘well, you know, it's what happens and it's not so bad and by the way.’
“I would never, you know…this is all a big hoax, but you know, I'm a star and it's been true for the last million years that stars can do this kind of thing.”
Watch:Lackluster deposition': former prosecutor says Trump is losing 'credibility' fight with E. Jean Carroll
Former president Donald Trump's "lackluster deposition performance" could help his accuser in a civil rape and defamation case win a "credibility battle" between the two parties, a former United States Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama said on Friday.
Joyce Vance, who served as a U.S. Attorney from 2009 to 2017, was speaking to Joy Reid of The ReidOut on MSNBC Friday when Reid asked whether it will hurt Trump's case to include a deposition in which he misremembers details. Trump's attorneys emphasized their questioning of alleged victim E. Jean Carroll on minute details that she likely wouldn't remember.
"I mean, this is about a credibility battle between two witnesses, one of whom did not come to the courthouse, did not sit in the courtroom during the trial, did not testify. And then gave this really lackluster deposition performance," Vance said. "So if you're E. Jean Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, you are likely very content to play this deposition and to let the jury see for themselves that this is an individual who has a bad memory when it serves him."
Vance added that it will be "up to the jury" to determine what really happened in this case.
Reid asked Vance if the judge is protecting himself by ensuring Trump still has the opportunity to testify, despite the fact that his lawyers have claimed he will not be presenting testimony on his own behalf.
"This is the judge making every effort to hold Trump accountable. In a civil case, E. Jean Carroll could have subpoenaed Trump to testify," Vance said. "Her lawyers chose not to, I think likely because the deposition testimony is just so startlingly good for them. Trump can voluntarily choose to testify if he wants to. He did not. He relinquished that right, but after he made those comments on the golf course in Ireland, it was almost as though you could."
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