President-elect Trump spent nearly an hour Thursday morning filming a deposition for his lawsuit against celebrity chef Jose Andres, who was slapped with a $10 million breach-of-contract lawsuit after he backed out of opening a restaurant in Trump’s luxury D.C. hotel.
“The deposition was completed earlier today and lasted just over one hour as the case is fairly straightforward,” Trump’s general counsel, Alan Garten, said in a statement.
“In short, parties entered into a valid and enforceable lease, which the tenant clearly breached by walking out and failing to perform its obligations, thereby entitling the landlord to recover damages in the form of unpaid rent, cost of build out, lost profits and other expenses,” he explained.
At least one senior transition aide, incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer, seemed unaware that the deposition was underway when reporters asked about it during a conference call Thursday morning.
“Let me take a look at his schedule and I’ll get back to you on that,” Spicer said.
Trump filed the lawsuit against Andres, who attributed his refusal to open a restaurant in Trump’s hotel to the president-elect’s inflammatory comments about Mexican immigrants early last year and has refused to settle despite pleas from the defendant.
“Mr. [Trump] can we end our lawsuits and we donate $ to a Veterans NGO to celebrate? Why keep litigating? Let’s both of us win,” Andres tweeted last month.
