Judge orders Trump to give videotaped deposition in protest lawsuit
A New York judge has ordered former
President Trump to give a videotaped deposition next week as part of a civil lawsuit connected to a 2015 protest where demonstrators and his security guards allegedly clashed.
A group of Mexican protesters filed a lawsuit against Trump, his campaign, his former head of security Keith Schiller and others following a rally outside Trump Tower in New York City in 2015.
The four protesters claim that Trump’s security guards assaulted them and infringed on their rights to practice free speech. They said they were out demonstrating against then-candidate Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants.
Trump has previously called Mexican immigrants
rapists and other criminals.
The plaintiffs allege that Schiller hit one of the protesters, Efrain Galicia, in the head after the security official tried to take away a cardboard sign that read “Trump: Make America Racist Again,” according to
CNN.
New York Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez is now requesting Trump’s deposition.
“Donald J. Trump shall appear for a deposition October 18, 2021 at 10 a.m. ... or, in the event of illness or emergency, on another mutually agreed to date on or before October 31, 2021,” Gonzalez’s order reads, according to
ABC News.
Gonzalez in September 2019 had
ordered Trump to answer questions in a videotaped deposition, contending that his testimony was “indispensable.”
Trump at the time cited executive privilege as a reason why he could not testify, but Gonzalez rejected that claim, writing in an order that “no government official, including the executive, is above the law,” according to CNN.
Trump’s lawyers reportedly appealed that decision.
The beginning of the trial was then postponed so legal issues could be handled by the appeals court, according to CNN.
A New York judge has ordered former President Trump to give a videotaped deposition next week as part of a civil lawsuit connected to a 2015 protest where demonstrators and his security guards…
thehill.com