Trump could testify in E Jean Carroll case as early as Monday as Access Hollywood tape ruled out

Donald Trump couldtake the stand at his defamation trial brought by writer E Jean Carroll after her attorney revealed that the 2005 Access Hollywood tape and two witnesses accusing the former president of abuse will not be a part of the trial.

The current trial is the second defamation case brought by the former advice columnist, who claims that the ex-president raped her in a department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

Ms Carroll, 80, made the claim in a 2019 memoir during Mr Trump’s presidency and argues the then-president defamed her then and on several subsequent occasions by saying that she lied about the incident, in addition to a range of other insults.

Roberta Kaplan, the attorney representing Ms Carroll, said on Saturday that the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, revealed during the 2016 campaign showing Mr Trump bragging about sexually abusing women as well as two possible witnesses who have accused Mr Trump of abuse, will not be part of the Manhattan proceedings.

This means that Mr Trump, the heavy favourite in the GOP presidential race that continues on Tuesday with the New Hampshire primary, could take the stand in the trial as soon as Monday 22 January.

The jury has been tasked with deciding if Mr Trump owes Ms Carroll more than the $5m she was awarded in the first defamation trial, which concluded last spring. That jury found Mr Trump liable for sexual abuse but not rape. The defamation claim handled in that trial was about a statement Mr Trump made in October 2022, after he left the White House.

In a letter to the judge on Saturday, Ms Kaplan said she was not going to show the jury the 2005 Access Hollywood tape to keep the trial more focused, adding that she would not call Trump