Trump to Be Deposed This Week in José Andrés Lawsuit

The deposition will take place in Trump Tower.

ByABC News
January 4, 2017, 2:29 PM

— -- President-elect Donald Trump is set to be deposed sometime this week in his ongoing legal battle against celebrity chef José Andrés, a lawyer representing Trump Old Post Office LLC, a development company that's part of the Trump Organization, confirms to ABC News.

The lawyer would not say what day the deposition would take place.

The deposition, which comes two weeks before Trump's inauguration, could last up to seven hours, according to a judge’s ruling. Trump's legal team sought to limit the deposition to two hours, but that effort was blocked by the D.C. Superior Court judge overseeing the case last month.

The deposition will take place in Trump Tower, the lawyer said.

It was originally slated to occur in Washington, D.C., but Trump's team raised "security reasons" and asked that it be moved to New York. The chef's legal team agreed to move the location while noting that it "seems dubious that the president-elect cannot be afforded adequate security in the capital of the United States."

Trump filed a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit after Andrés pulled out of a deal to open a Spanish-themed restaurant at Trump International Hotel in D.C. shortly after Trump launched his presidential bid. Andrés argued that Trump's comments on the campaign trail about Hispanics were disparaging and made it difficult to operate a successful high-end Spanish restaurant. Andrés, who immigrated to the United States from Spain, is a naturalized U.S. citizen.

Andrés later filed a countersuit for $8 million through his company ThinkFoodGroup, alleging that Trump initially breached the contract with his controversial statements.

For his part, Andrés appears ready to settle the suits. He took to Twitter last month to publicly make an appeal to Trump to settle their legal quarrel out of court.

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