Trump won't testify in E. Jean Carroll civil rape defamation trial, his lawyer says

Donald Trump will not testify in the civil trial where writer E. Jean Carroll accuses the former president of rape and defamation, his attorney Joe Tacopina told a federal judge Tuesday, according to NBC News.

Trump's attendance in the trial, which began last week, was previously an open question. Tacopina had told Judge Lewis Kaplan that Trump would decide on his plans "during the court of the trial."

As Trump's lawyers defended him in federal court in Manhattan, the ex-president himself had traveled to Scotland, where he broke ground on a new golf course on Monday.

Meanwhile, Carroll on Monday wrapped her third and final day of testimony in the trial, which centers on her allegations that Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the 1990s and then defamed her when she took her story public years later.

Under lengthy cross-examination from Tacopina, Carroll responded to questions about her decision not to call the police after the alleged assault and her subsequent praise of Trump's former reality show, "The Apprentice."

On Tuesday, Carroll's longtime friend Lisa Birnbach testified that Carroll had called her just "minutes" after she was allegedly assaulted in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman.

"I said, 'Jean, he raped you. You should go to the police,'" Birnbach testified, according to NBC. "She said, 'No, no. I don't want to go to the police.'"

Trump has denied assaulting Carroll.

Another witness, Jessica Leeds, alleged in testimony Tuesday that Trump had groped her on an airplane in the 1970s. Trump has denied Leeds' claim.