NEW YORK: Jurors in Donald Trump’s civil rape trial on Thursday saw a video deposition in which the former US president mistook a photograph of E. Jean Carroll, his accuser, for his ex-wife Marla Maples.

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.

Trump, the front-runner for next year’s Republican presidential nomination, has said he could not have raped Carroll, because “she’s not my type” and has called the case politically motivated.

He will not testify at the trial and has not been in the Manhattan courtroom so far, but on Thursday told reporters during a trip to Ireland that he would “probably” attend.

In a video excerpt of a combative deposition by Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan played on Thursday, Trump was asked about a black-and-white photograph that shows him speaking to people at an event.

“It’s Marla,” he said, referring to his second wife.

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 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.”

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2023