Writer E. Jean Carroll, who’s suing Donald Trump in federal court in New York for defamation and battery, began her testimony today with a straightforward declaration of what the trial is about: “I’m here because Trump raped me. He lied and shattered my reputation and I’m trying to get my life back.”
Carroll sued Trump because after she wrote a book mentioning the alleged 1996 rape in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room, Trump called her claims a hoax, said that he’d never met her (of course, she’d been photographed with him), and, disgustingly, that he never would rape her since she wasn’t his “type.” Carroll also filed a second case against Trump after he was no longer “president,” when he again claimed on social media that the entire case was false; that case includes a sexual battery claim against Trump under New York’s Adult Survivors Act. More background on the lawsuits here:
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During her testimony today, Carroll, who acknowledges she’s not certain of the exact date, said she was fairly certain it happened in the spring of 1996, because a friend, Lisa Birnbach, whom she told about the rape contemporaneously, had published an article about visiting Trump’s Florida trash palace, Mar-a-Lago, in February of 1996.
Carroll testified, “I believe that Lisa never would have gone down to Mar-a-Lago if she knew what [Trump] had done to me.” That drew an objection from Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, but Judge Lewis Kaplan overruled it. Law Crime News editor Adam Klasfeld is live-tweeting the testimony, which he notes “mirrors her deposition” covering the events of that day.
Carroll said that the encounter began when she was leaving the store and Trump raised his hand up, imitating what she called the “universal” signal.
After Trump recognized her as the “advice lady,” she replied: “Hey, you’re that real estate tycoon,” she says.
“You are so old,” Carroll quoted him saying, calling his inflection “humorous.”
After they went into the store to help Trump find a gift for a woman, Carroll says, Trump picked up a see-through, gray, body suit.
“It looks like a swimsuit, but this was see-through,” she says. “It used to be called teddies.”
She says Trump said: “Go put this on.”
As she said in the deposition, Carroll said Trump’s tone was joking, and she told him, “You put it on. It’s your color.” She considered the encounter at that point to be silly, something out of a Saturday Night Live sketch, and she agreed that she was flirting a bit with Trump, since it felt like a comedy.
Then once Trump got her into the dressing room, things suddenly changed immediately, as Trump “shoved” her up against the wall and she tried to push back. We won’t go into the details of the assault here, because they’ll be all over the news anyway and you don’t want to read it every bit as much as I don’t want to write it, even copy pasting. Carroll presented an unsparing, detailed account, testifying that “As I’m sitting here today, I still feel it.”
Carroll said that afterward, she told Birnbach about it, thinking her friend might find it funny:
Asked pointedly why she ever would have thought that, Carroll replies: “I had not processed it. I had not processed what was going on.”
Asked if she thinks any part of it was funny today, Carroll replies: “No, it was tragic.”
Carroll said that Birnbach, who is an anticipated witness, told her:
“He raped you. He raped you, E. Jean. You should go to the police.”
“I said ‘No way.’”
“She said, ‘I’ll go with you.'”
Another friend, Carol Martin, who’s also expected to testify, told her to “keep it to yourself” because Trump “has 200 lawyers. He’ll bury you.”
Carroll also said that she decided to stay silent, in part, because women who’ve been assaulted are treated as “soiled goods”:
“People say, ‘You’re so brave. You’re so brave,'” but also: “I don’t know,” questioning whether the woman should have been smarter, should have screamed, or shouldn’t have flirted so much.
And of course Trump’s defense will be that none of this ever happened and that Carroll is just making it all up for the fame and notoriety, although we’d note that most women who accuse famous powerful men of rape tend not to end up rich and famous so much as judged and publicly mocked. Honestly can’t recall any rich famous rape victims who didn’t get dragged for coming forward, honestly.
Also in court today, Judge Kaplan warned Tacopina that his idiot client should stop posting on social media about the trial, because of course Trump is exactly that stupid. On his pretend Twitter replacement site, Trump this morning mocked the very idea that he would have raped Carroll, who was then “almost 60,” and tried to cast doubt on details of her account, insisting that he was so very famous that if anyone had seen him with a woman, it would have made “BIG PRESS.”
He also accused Carroll’s attorney of being a “political operative,” and said that the lawsuit was being funded by a “big political donor that they tried to hide.” Returning to a point that was already ruled out of evidence, Trump also pretended that there was something very fishy about Carroll’s attorneys not being willing to do a DNA test on the dress she’d worn that day. In reality, Trump refused to supply a DNA sample for years, and then Tacopina only offered to have Trump provide one shortly before the trial started, which would have required a delay of the trial.
NBC News reports that
Judge Kaplan suggested to Trump lawyer Joseph Tacopina that the former president could risk being sued or having sanctions imposed for the Truth Social posts he issued Wednesday morning.
“We are getting into an area in which your client could face a new liability and I think you know what I mean,” Kaplan said.
Judge Kaplan also pointed out to Tacopina that Trump “refused to get DNA sample and now he wants it in the case?” Tacopina said he would have a word with the shithead he represents, and would ask him not to discuss the case on social media. That should go really well, we bet. Get ready for the “Inside the Carroll Trial” reports in six months, in which we’ll learn Trump threatened to fire Tacopina, threw ketchup at him, and finally pouted and shut up for a few days.
[NBC News / Adam Klasfeld on Twitter]
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