<div style="text-align: justify; "><b style="font-size: 1rem;">Former President Donald Trump said he has never read any part of a book in which the columnist E. Jean Carroll accused him of raping her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s, according to court records unsealed Wednesday.</b><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trump was questioned under oath in October by lawyers for Carroll, who is suing the Republican. During his 5 1/2-hour deposition, Trump said he hasn't read Carroll's book, “What Do We Need Men For?" and didn't see excerpts of it in a New York magazine article when the book was released in 2019.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Portions of the transcript of Trump's deposition were ordered unsealed in court records by a judge who would preside over a trial.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carroll, a former longtime Elle magazine advice columnist, accused Trump in the book of attacking her in an upscale Manhattan department store in late 1995 or early 1996 after they ran into each other by chance and exchanged lighthearted banter about who should try on a piece of lingerie.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">After the book was published, Trump said the encounter never happened and claimed Carroll was making it up to fuel book sales. He also said he had never met Carroll and dismissed her as “not my type.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">He said a photograph showing him with Carroll and both of their spouses at an event in 1987 was apparently an unmemorable encounter on a receiving line.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan, asked Trump if he read the book or any portion of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“No, never have. I’ve never seen the book actually,” he responded.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Kaplan also asked Trump about the black and white photograph that shows him with Carroll, her husband, and Trump's then-wife, Ivana Trump, who died last July at age 73.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trump pointed at Carroll in the picture and said: “It's Marla.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“You're saying Marla is in this photo?” Kaplan asked.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“That's Marla, yeah. That's my wife,” Trump answered, according to the transcript, apparently referring to Marla Maples, who he married several years after the picture was taken.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, interjected to say: “No, that's Carroll.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Oh, I see,” Trump then said.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The transcript excerpts in four dozen pages released Wednesday came a week after several dozen other pages were unsealed by the court.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Habba did not immediately comment Wednesday. Kaplan declined comment.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The deposition was recorded on video, but the recording was not put in the public record for two lawsuits seeking unspecified damages that Carroll has brought against Trump.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Carroll first sued him for defamation, saying his statements damaged her reputation. In November, she brought a separate lawsuit specifying that she is owed damages for rape, a legal road made possible when New York state enacted a temporary law allowing adult rape victims to sue their abusers, even if the attacks occurred decades ago.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the pages unsealed Wednesday, Kaplan asked Trump if he was talking about Carroll's physical appearance in pictures when he said she was not his type.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“Physically she’s not my type, and now that I’ve gotten indirectly to hear things about her, she wouldn’t be my type in any way, shape, or form,” he said, calling her accusation “ridiculous.”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Late in the deposition after Trump characterized Carroll as a “sick woman,” Kaplan confronted him with accusations that two dozen women have made against him, asking: “They're all sick, too, right?”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Trump answered: “I don’t know about any of these people or very many of them. I mean, every once in a while, you get — I think a lot of famous people have charges thrown at them, and many of them are false and some of them are true. But in my case —”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“None of it is true?” Kaplan interrupted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify;">“I would say. I mean, I don’t see any. I mean, you haven’t shown me anything,” Trump responded, according to the transcript. AP/UNB</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br></div><div style="text-align: justify; ">bnbd24/kh</div>