Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seeking to use former President Donald Trump's rape trial deposition against him in the upcoming trial over his alleged hush-money payments. In his May trial testimony, Trump stated via video before a federal courtroom during his civil trial with writer E. Jean Carroll that prominent media personalities like himself were capable of evading prosecution for sexual harassment. "Historically that's true with stars. If you look over the last million years, that's largely true, unfortunately — or fortunately," he said, referring to his now infamous line about groping women: "Grab 'em by the p*ssy."
Bragg asked the judge overseeing the case to use Trump's video deposition in his own probe to demonstrate how the former president "dealt with allegations of a sexual nature," thereby hopefully showing how he was urgently trying to stifle news of an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign, coverage which could have sullied his public image. The Daily Beast reported Bragg has described Trump's trying to pay off Daniels as a "catch and kill" scheme intended to shield Americans from other allegations he had been hit with.
New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan now must decide if Bragg's team of prosecutors can have access to the video deposition. He issued a July 7 ruling that the prosecutors' request was "not overbroad or otherwise inappropriate," but did ask U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan for "clarification," per the Daily Beast.
