A federal judge on Thursday decided to give the Manhattan District Attorney exactly what he wants: a video copy of former President Donald Trump’s damning testimony in an unrelated rape and defamation case that was decided earlier this year.
For months, DA Alvin Bragg Jr.’s prosecutors have been trying to get their hands on a taped deposition in which Trump actually said stars like him get away with sexual harassment “unfortunately—or fortunately.”
Although that interview was part of the recent civil case in which Trump was ultimately found liable for sexually abusing the journalist E. Jean Carroll, Manhattan prosecutors have been trying to weaponize his deposition for their own upcoming criminal trial in March 2024—for lying on business records to cover up his sexual affairs.
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In state court documents, prosecutors reasoned that his history of insulting responses about sexual misconduct allegations is relevant to his alleged criminal scheme of paying off people to keep women silent to avoid public embarrassment.
But Trump’s lawyers tried to block that move, arguing that particular evidence at his rape trial was actually meant to stay secret under a protective order. New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan asked the federal judge who oversaw the rape trial to weigh in.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan disagreed. On Thursday, he gave Carroll’s lawyers permission to hand it over.
“Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP may comply with the People’s trial subpoena,” he wrote in a court order on Thursday.
The decision means prosecutors can get the tape, but it doesn’t mean they can use it at trial—at least not yet. That decision will be up to Merchan, the state court judge overseeing the Manhattan DA’s case, who will decide if and how prosecutors can present it to jurors at trial. Merchan will decide if Trump’s comments about women and sexual relations are relevant to the criminal case about his false business records and sexual affair coverups.
While the cases are entirely separate, the courtroom scrimmaging shows how the former president is drowning in so many legal headaches that they’re starting to overlap. In a similar fashion, the Manhattan DA’s long-running investigation benefited the New York Attorney General, who is currently suing Trump over the way he routinely inflated property values to lie to banks and tax collectors. Also, the House Jan. 6 Committee’s expansive examination of Trump’s role in the 2021 insurrection helped fuel the Department of Justice’s indictment of Trump earlier this week.
It’s unclear how exactly Manhattan prosecutors working on the fake business records case will use Trump’s rape trial testimony, which shows him being unapologetic about sexual assault and resorting to misogynistic jabs at the lawyer questioning him.
In the video, Carroll’s lawyer asked the former president about his previous gloating that he could grab women “by the pussy.” Roberta Kaplan asked whether Trump felt that celebrities could get away with it.
“Historically that’s true with stars. If you look over the last million years, that’s largely true, unfortunately—or fortunately,” he said.
Trump later clarified that he considers himself a star.
