President-elect Donald J. Trump was ordered by a federal judge on Friday to sit for a deposition next week in the defamation lawsuit he brought this spring against ABC News and one of its anchors, George Stephanopoulos.
The deposition, if it is held, will take place even as Mr. Trump is in the throes of defending several of his cabinet nominees and working with his transition team to put together his presidential administration.
The order by Magistrate Judge Lisette M. Reid, issued in Federal District Court in Miami, was the latest collision of Mr. Trump’s legal battles with his political responsibilities. He filed the suit against ABC in March, claiming that Mr. Stephanopoulos had damaged his reputation by saying multiple times on air that he had been found liable for raping the writer E. Jean Carroll.
Last year, a jury in Manhattan found Mr. Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Ms. Carroll, but it did not find him liable for rape. Still, the judge who heard that case later clarified that because of New York’s narrow legal definition of rape, the jury’s verdict did not mean that Ms. Carroll had “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Mr. Trump accused Mr. Stephanopoulos of defamation after he said Mr. Trump had been found liable for rape during a contentious interview on March 10 with Representative Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina. In the interview, Mr. Stephanopoulos asked Ms. Mace, who has spoken publicly about being raped as a teenager, why she had continued to support Mr. Trump in light of the outcome of the Carroll case.
In her order on Friday, Magistrate Judge Reid said Mr. Trump’s deposition would have to be held in person at some point next week in the Southern District of Florida, which includes Palm Beach, home to Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence. She also ordered Mr. Stephanopoulos to sit for a deposition next week, either in person or remotely.
Neither Mr. Trump’s lawyers nor lawyers for ABC responded to an email seeking comment. And there is some uncertainty about whether the depositions will proceed.
The plaintiffs and defendant have been in mediation, trying to resolve the case for months. The district judge overseeing Magistrate Judge Reid set a deadline of Monday for both sides to tell her whether they have reached an agreement.
If the case can be settled short of trial, there would be no need for either deposition.
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