June 5 (UPI) — A judge ordered President Donald Trump on Tuesday to submit to a deposition in Summer Zervos’ defamation lawsuit brought against him last year.
Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice accused Trump of groping and kissing her in a Beverly Hills hotel following her appearance on the program in 2007. Trump has called the allegations “100 percent fabricated” and a “hoax,” prompting the suit, Politico reported.
Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Schechter ordered both parties to submit to depositions in the suit before a deadline of Jan. 31, 2019. Trump’s lawyers have appealed Tuesday’s decision to New York’s Court of Appeals in hopes of still avoiding a deposition.
Zervos is one of several women who’ve accused Trump of sexual assault. Zervos has said she would be willing to drop the suit if Trump admits he assaulted her.
The court order has been another hit to Trump’s claims that he cannot be sued in state court as a sitting president.
Schecter ruled earlier this year that the case could proceed, saying, “No one is above the law.”
In the 18-page decision in March, she wrote: “Nothing in the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution even suggests that the President cannot be called to account before a state court for wrongful conduct that bears no relationship to any federal executive responsibility.”
