A judge has ruled that Donald Trump must provide sworn testimony in a lawsuit filed in 2015 by demonstrators who allege they were assaulted by his bodyguards.
State Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez of the Bronx ordered Trump to be deposed on Monday at Trump Tower, where the alleged attack took place.
CBS News provides details on the lawsuit:
Efrain Galicia, Florencia Tejeda Perez, Gonzalo Cruz Franco, Johnny Garcia, and Miguel Villalobos allege that on September 3, 2015, while protesting then-candidate Trump’s disparaging comments about Mexicans in front of New York City’s Trump Tower, security guards outside the building physically assaulted them and destroyed their protest signage.
According to the lawsuit, one individual was tossed to the ground and another was punched in the head by Trump Organization security staff. Members of the press reportedly documented the alleged incident.
NBC News adds:
The protesters sued Trump, his company, his campaign and the guards in the incident, which they said disrupted their “peaceful and lawful assembly.”
In a February 2016 affidavit, Trump said he shouldn’t have to be deposed because he didn’t know anything about the skirmish and hadn’t been involved in hiring security.
Trump also argued that he was too busy with his presidential duties to participate in the case. An appeals court in 2019 temporarily allowed him to avoid being deposed as it considered if a sitting president could be forced to testify in a civil suit.
After he left office, that argument became moot.
“We will be taking the trial testimony of Donald Trump, under oath, on Monday after years of the defendants’ dilatory attempts to shield him from this examination,” said Benjamin Dictor, an attorney for the protesters. “We look forward to presenting the video of Mr. Trump’s testimony to a jury at his trial.”
There are at least nine other pending civil lawsuits involving Trump.
