Former US president Donald Trump has testified under oath as part of a civil lawsuit brought by protesters who allege they were assaulted by his security guards in 2015.
Trump sat for a videotaped deposition on Monday morning at Trump Tower in mid-town Manhattan, said Benjamin Dictor, a lawyer who sought Trump's testimony in the long-running dispute
New York Supreme Court Justice Doris Gonzalez last week ordered Trump to sit for the videotaped deposition.
A group of protesters brought the lawsuit in 2015, alleging that Trump's security guards attacked them while they were demonstrating outside Trump Tower in September 2015 over the then-presidential candidate's comments that Mexican immigrants were criminals and rapists.
"They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime, they're rapists," he said during the June 16 speech announcing his candidacy.
Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump faces several civil lawsuits over conduct from before and during his presidency.
Earlier this month, a New York state judge gave Trump a December 23 deadline to undergo questioning in a defamation lawsuit filed by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on The Apprentice.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Zervos had accused Trump of subjecting her to unwanted kissing and groping when she sought career advice in 2007, two years after her appearance on his reality television show.
Zervos had sued Trump in January 2017, but the case remains unresolved in part because Trump argued while in the White House that a sitting president could not be sued.
That issue became moot after Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, which made Trump a private citizen, New York's highest court ruled in March.
Trump's lawyer in that case, Alina Habba, has denied Zervos's allegations, calling the lawsuit frivolous.
Australian Associated Press
