Donald Trump’s attorneys did not want the former president’s sworn testimony in which he worried about being pelted with “very dangerous” fruit to be made public.
Trump’s comments were from an October 2021 deposition in a civil lawsuit filed by five activists who allege they were assaulted by Trump’s security guards outside Trump Tower in Manhattan in 2015. The Daily Beast published some of the fruitier excerpts last week after it was filed in court.
Trump’s lawyers said in a court filing on Tuesday that the release of the transcript containing the fruit discussion was “palpably improper” and called for sanctions against the plaintiffs’ lawyers, accusing them of releasing it in “bad faith” and tainting the jury, Insider reported.
Benjamin Dictor, a lawyer for the activists, countered that Trump’s side had fair warning that the deposition would come out and that he “should have the reasonable expectations that his words and actions will be subject to some level of media scrutiny.”
During the deposition, Trump said he worried about people throwing “pineapples, tomatoes, bananas” at him during rallies.
“It’s very dangerous stuff. You can get killed with those things,” Trump said about projectile tomatoes when asked by Dictor for examples of security threats his team had to face.
Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, said he heard Trump tell his staff to get rid of the protesters before the 2015 incident. That contradicts Trump’s sworn claim in the deposition that he did not authorize his security to act against the protesters.
According to an email exchange between both teams obtained by the Daily Beast, Dictor said he needed to file the deposition containing Trump’s contradictory testimony to demonstrate why he requires Cohen’s testimony in the case.
An original jury selection date of May 2 was pushed back to June 20 following the dispute.