Trump says he shouldn’t attend E Jean Carroll rape trial as he doesn’t want to ‘burden’ New York

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

Donald Trump has said he shouldn’t attend E Jean Carroll’s rape civil trial as he doesn’t want to “burden” New York City.

In a letter to Manhattan federal court Judge Lewis Kaplan on Wednesday, Mr Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina said that the former president “wishes” to attend the civil trial beginning next week – but is concerned about the “logistical and financial burdens” of his attendance on “the courthouse and New York City”.

As a result, Mr Tacopina asked that jurors be instructed the following: "While no litigant is required to appear at a civil trial, the absence of the defendant in this matter, by design, avoids the logistical burdens that his presence, as the former president, would cause the courthouse and New York City. Accordingly, his presence is excused unless and until he is called by either party to testify.”

The letter leaves open the possibility the former president could still testify in person in the upcoming trial.

Mr Trump appears on the defence’s list of potential witnesses, but does not on that of Ms Carroll, who alleges the businessman-turned-politician raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

In a separate letter to the court on Wednesday, the writer’s attorney indicated they would probably ask a pre-taped deposition of Mr Trump be played for jurors in lieu of in-person testimony, writing that Ms Carroll “has a right to play Donald Trump’s deposition at trial” but that there’s “no need for him to testify live,” NBC News reports.

The message also expressed scepticism about the former president’s communications, arguing "the notion that Mr. Trump would not appear as some sort of favor to the City of New York—and that the jury should be instructed as much—’taxes the credulity of the credulous.’”

On Monday, the New York court declined Mr Trump’s request to postpone the trial for a month, which the former president had argued was necessary due to the “deluge of prejudicial media coverage” following Mr Trump’s indictment in Manhattan for hush money payments.

In denying the request, Judge Kaplan wrote that such headlines were “invited or provoked by Mr Trump’s own actions.”

“It does not sit well for Mr. Trump to promote pretrial publicity and then to claim that coverage that he promoted was prejudicial to him and should be taken into account as supporting a further delay,” the judge wrote, according to The New York Times.

In November, Ms Carroll sued Mr Trump under a new New York law allowing individuals a one-year window to bring civil charges against alleged abusers for rape even if the statute of limitations had expired.

The magazine columnist previously sued Mr Trump for defamation relating to the alleged incident, after he accused Ms Carroll of lying about the attack for her personal gain.