Donald Trump may attend a trial in New York

Donald Trump said Thursday he will “probably” attend a civil trial in New York accusing him of rape and defamation, and reiterated his denials of the allegations while visiting his Irish golf resort.

Author E. Jean Carroll, 79, says Trump, 76, raped her in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-1990s and then tarnished her reputation and career by lying about it online.

“I will probably attend (the trial) and I think it is a shame that this is allowed to happen, false accusations against a rich man, or in my case against a famous, rich and political person,” the former US president told reporters while playing golf at the Doonbeg resort in southwest Ireland.

“I have to go back for a woman who made a false accusation about me, and I have a judge who is extremely hostile.”

Trump also denied the accusation in an impeachment video played Wednesday in front of a federal jury in Manhattan, as Trump tried to defend himself without testifying in person.

Trump, frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, will not testify in person, and his legal team told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday that they will not call witnesses.

The process has taken six days so far and is expected to last until next week.

Carroll said during three days of testimony and a sharp cross-examination that Trump slammed her against the wall in 1995 or 1996, inserted his fingers into her vagina, and then inserted his penis.

Trump denied the allegations in his testimony video and accused Carroll of fabricating the story to boost sales of a 2019 memoir, in which she makes her claims public.