Trump may testify in person at the civil rape trial of E. Jean Carroll

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A lawyer for Donald Trump indicated Wednesday that the former president may take the witness stand in a civil rape trial set to begin next week.

In a letter to the judge presiding over writer E. Jean Carroll’s case against Trump, Joe Tacopina said it was too difficult for his client to attend the entire trial for logistical reasons tied to his former office, but left the door is open to possibility. he can testify in person.

Tacopina asked Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan to tell jurors: “While no litigant is required to appear in a civil trial, the absence of a defendant in this matter, by design, avoids logistical burdens that his presence, as a former president, would cause the courthouse and New York City. Accordingly, his presence is permitted unless and until he is called by either party to testify.

Tacopina declined to comment on the letter, telling NBC News that she is busy preparing for trial.

Trump is on the defense witness list in the case, but previously sat for a videotaped deposition on Carroll’s claims that he raped her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and then defamed her by accusing the him of making the story for personal gain.

Trump denied the rape claims and repeatedly insulted Carroll during his October deposition, calling her a whack job that was not my type. He also mistook a photo of Carroll from the 1990s as a photo of his ex-wife Marla Maples, according to deposition excerpts unsealed in January.

Trump was not on Carroll’s witness list, but language in a February court filing appeared to allow him the possibility of calling witnesses from Trump’s list.

In a letter to the judge late Wednesday, Carroll’s attorney signaled that they do not plan to call Trump as a witness, and that his taped deposition will suffice.

Roberta Kaplan said her client has the right to play Donald Trumps deposition at trial and does not need to testify live.

The letters from Tacopina and Kaplan came after the judge asked both sides if their clients planned to attend the trial, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

In her letter, Tacopina recounted her experience with Trump last month in Manhattan criminal court, where Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.

Tacopina said Trump was “always accompanied by about a dozen Secret Service agents,” a major highway was temporarily closed, and the courthouse “was frozen while he was there” while traffic was shut down for a three block radius.

Kaplan, in his letter, said “the notion that Mr. Trump will not appear as some kind of favor in New York City and that the jury should be taught more ‘taxes the credulity of believers.’

“Mr. Trump has no right to a judicial endorsement of his (flimsy) excuse,” Kaplan wrote, adding that his client “has made it clear that he will attend the entire trial and testify under oath before a jury of his colleagues.”

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