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But last month, a panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled by a 2-to-1 vote that the president is an employee of the federal government, but it did not decide whether he was acting in that capacity when he made his statements about Ms. Carroll. The panel asked the District of Columbia Court of Appeals to answer that question, because Mr. Trump had made his statements in Washington.

Mr. Trump’s lawyer, Ms. Habba, had argued that her client’s deposition should be delayed until the D.C. appeals court ruled. But in his denial last week, Judge Kaplan noted that a ruling from the D.C. court could take a long time.

“Perhaps most significant,” Judge Kaplan wrote, both Ms. Carroll, 78, and Mr. Trump, 76, and perhaps other witnesses in the case, were already of advanced age. “The defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out,” the judge wrote, on Ms. Carroll’s “attempt to gain a remedy for what allegedly was a serious wrong.”

The deposition could matter even if Ms. Carroll’s defamation suit dies.

Ms. Carroll’s lawyers have said that she plans to file a separate case against Mr. Trump in November under a new state law allowing adult sexual assault victims a one-time opportunity to sue, even if the statute of limitations has expired.

That suit will probably end up before Judge Kaplan under the federal court’s rules on related cases.

Given the potential filing of the second lawsuit, the judge wrote last week, there was no reason to delay Mr. Trump’s deposition.

“The question whether Mr. Trump in fact raped Ms. Carroll is central to this case,” Judge Kaplan wrote. “But it will be central also to the new case.”