NEW YORK (AP) — At first, she thought helping Donald Trump buy a gift of women’s underwear at a luxury branch would be “a fun thing in New York City. “
Even when, according to E. Jean Carroll, the businessman at the time beckoned him to move on to a fitting room while others were challenged to look in a see-through suit, he imagined something resembling a “Saturday Night Live” comic strip he had. written.
But soon, “my total explanation of why I was alive at that moment to leave this room,” Carroll testified Wednesday at the rape trial.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and broke my reputation, and I’m here to see if I can get my life back,” Carroll told jurors. . .
While taking the plunge to describe the alleged 1996 attack, Trump from afar repeated his insistence that Carroll’s claim is a natural fiction. He wrote on his social media site that the case “is a made-up scam” and more.
“This is a fraudulent and false story: witch hunt!”Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. His comments prompted a judgment to be issued to warn Trump’s lawyers that he could create more legal disorder for himself.
Trump has not attended the trial so far, but his lawyers said Tuesday he can still testify.
The lawsuit comes as Trump seeks the Republican presidential nomination again, and weeks after pleading guilty to unrelated felon charges involving bills to silence a porn actor who said she had sex with him.
Carroll, 79, testified that he met Trump at Bergdorf Goodman’s revolving door on an unspecified Thursday night in the spring of 1996. At the time, she was writing a longtime recommendation column in Elle magazine, and had also written for “SNL. “Trump, a real estate mogul and social figure in New York.
She said he asked her for a recommendation to opt for a gift for a woman and that she was very happy to accommodate him. Funny story, she said.
She testified that she had advised him a hat, but he resorted to underwear, and they soon laughed at the suit. Amused and flirting with him, she followed, laughing even when he closed the cabin door, even as he led her to the opposite side. to a wall
But then, he claims, he hit her mouth with hers, put his stockings on her and put his hand and then his penis in her as he fought him.
She said she brought him to his knees, ran away and for years blamed herself.
“I think about why I went in there to put myself in this situation,” he said, his voice breaking.
Carroll said that for decades she hadn’t told anyone except two friends because she feared Trump would retaliate, because she “thought it was my fault” and because she thought many other people blamed rape victims for what happened to them.
The alleged attack occurred long before the #MeToo movement drew attention to how law enforcement and the public treat victims of sexual assault. Carroll said #MeToo boosted his resolve to move forward in a 2019 memoir and an accompanying magazine excerpt.
Trump, 76, said he wasn’t in the store with Carroll and had no idea who she was when he first broke the story.
As the court was about to begin Wednesday, Trump expressed his emotions about the case on Truth Social.
Among his other comments, he called Carroll’s attorney a “political operative” and alluded to a DNA challenge to get Judge Lewis A. Kaplan was part of the case.
Lawyers for Carroll, whose lawsuit includes allegations that Trump in the past defamed her by publicly calling her case a “hoax,” “scam,” “lie” and “total scam,” spoke about her as new to Kaplan.
He was unhappy, saying Trump appeared to be addressing supporters and jurors “about things that aren’t talked about. “Kaplan called Trump’s message “an audience that, at first glance, is pretty inappropriate. “
Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, said jurors are being asked to stick to any news stories or comments online about the case. But he said he would ask Trump “to oppose any additional messaging on this matter. “
“I hope you do better,” Kaplan said, adding that Trump would “possibly adjust or not adjust a new source of possible liability. “
Carroll’s federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a retraction of his allegedly defamatory comments.
Carroll, who was married and divorced twice before her alleged meeting with Trump, hasn’t even been able to “show a guy I love her” since.
While his testimony was more realistic, he wept and wiped his eyes with a handkerchief as he described the gap between his “invincible” public persona and a personal self that “cannot admit out loud that there has been suffering. “”
The lawsuit was filed under a New York law that temporarily allows decades-old sexual abuse court cases to be filed in civil court. She never prosecuted fraud charges, pleading with her own readers to inform the police and seek treatment if they had been sexually assaulted.
Trump’s lawyer claimed Carroll filed a lawsuit to obtain cash and checks to politically punish Trump. Carroll, a registered Democrat, said she voted for her warring Democratic parties in 2016 and 2020 but said it had nothing to do with her trial.
“I don’t balance a political account at all. I resolve a non-public account,” he said.
The Associated Press does not call other people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll did.