This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

A former Apprentice contestant accusing Donald Trump of sexual misconduct is not entitled to records about his other accusers, which she had requested in her defamation lawsuit against the president, a judge decided on Friday.

Justice Jennifer Schecter of the Manhattan supreme court issued the decision during a short proceeding in Summer Zervos’s defamation case against Trump.

Zervos has claimed that Trump “ambushed and assaulted [her] on multiple occasions, including attacks at both his office and in a hotel room” in 2007, court papers state.

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While on the 2016 campaign trail, Trump denied Zervos’s allegations of sexual misconduct, saying they were false and fabricated. But by saying Zervos lied, Trump described her in a defamatory way, her January 2017 lawsuit charges.

As part of the case Zervos’s lawyer, Mariann Wang, had been pushing Trump to release information about other sexual misconduct allegations– an effort opposed by Trump’s camp.

Schecter ultimately rejected Wang’s request.

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In issuing her decision from the bench, Schecter said other women’s allegations are “completely unrelated to [Zervos] and her claim”, making them inadmissible.

Schecter did greenlight Wang’s request for documents relating to Trump’s public statements on Zervos in the wake of her allegations.

This includes documents that could prove or disprove Zervos’s claims.

If Zervos’s allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump are true, then his denials could make for a defamation claim, Schecter reasoned.

“In making the statements he made about the plaintiff, he may have done so with actual malice,” Schecter said of Trump.

One of Trump’s lawyers on the case, Christine Montenegro, told Schecter that the president will defend himself by saying that his statements about Zervos – that she lied – were, in fact, true.

The proceeding came shortly after lawyers for Trump and Zervos argued over the legal viability of the case in a New York appeals court. Trump’s lead lawyer on the case, Marc Kasowitz, had unsuccessfully asked Schecter to dismiss Zervos’s case on purported presidential immunity grounds.

﻿The US constitution’s supremacy clause – which holds that federal law is the top law in the country – shields Trump from state-level legal action, Kasowitz has claimed.

Schecter previously wrote in a prior decision: “No one is above the law. It is settled that the president of the United States has no immunity and is ‘subject to the laws’ for purely private acts.”

The appeals panel has yet to issue a decision.

Zervos claims she made the decision to disclose her allegations against Trump in October 2016 after the Washington Post obtained a video recording in which Trump bragged about his sexual pursuits.

“You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful – I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” Trump told Billy Bush during a 2005 visit to the Days of Our Lives set.

“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

“Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything,” Trump was recorded as telling the TV personality.