Trump questioned in defamation case

 Former US President Donald Trump has answered questions under oath in a lawsuit brought against him by an advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges he raped her 3 decades ago.

 Carroll alleges the attack took place in a New York luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s but  Trump denied the claim saying Ms Carroll was lying, prompting her to sue him for defamation.

Carroll's attorney has not released details of the deposition, but said it took place on Wednesday, October 19 with a civil trial scheduled for 6 February, 2023.

"We're pleased that on behalf of our client, E Jean Carroll, we were able to take Donald Trump's deposition today," a spokesperson for law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink said.

"We are not able to comment further."

 Trump's attorney, Alina Habba, said in a statement: "As we have said all along, my client was pleased to set the record straight today.

"This case is nothing more than a political ploy like many others in the long list of witch hunts against Donald Trump."

According to a report by CNN, Trump participated in the deposition from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

In a 2019 article for New York magazine, Ms Carroll - a longtime Elle magazine advice columnist said she had a chance encounter with Mr Trump in late 1995 or early 1996 at the department store Bergdorf Goodman.

 She said she was helping him pick out a gift and the two of them ended up in a dressing room, where she alleges that he raped her. She says she was 52 and he was around 50, and Trump was married to Marla Maples at the time.

 At the time, Carroll also said she told two friends about the incident. One advised her to go to the police, but the other warned her to keep quiet, saying: "Forget it! He has 200 lawyers. He'll bury you."

 Trump quickly dismissed the allegation, accusing Ms Carroll of lying to sell her book.

She then filed a defamation lawsuit against Mr Trump while he was US president, saying his comments had harmed her reputation.

More than a dozen women have previously made sexual misconduct allegations against Mr Trump, which he has denied.