E. Jean Carroll Testifies: Donald Trump's Rape and Defamation Trial
Writer E. Jean Carroll spent two days on the witness stand in a Federal Court House in New York this past week. The civil case does not mandate that the accused, Donald Trump, be present during the trial. But he did post comments on social media.
Carroll has accused the former president of rape and defamation.
This follow-up episode focuses on the trial and Carroll’s two days on the witness stand.
Please note that there are graphic sexual descriptions in this episode. Please don’t listen if you feel it might trigger. If you are a victim of sexual violence, please seek help.
Listen To The Podcast - Posted on Friday, April 28, 2023
E. Jean Carroll v. Trump The Rape and Defamation Trial
“I’m here because Trump raped me.” Those are the words of writer E. Jean Carroll, in a New York Federal courtroom on Wednesday, April 26.
The writer and very brave woman spent two days on the witness stand.
Explosive, painful testimony in the E. Jean Carroll v. Trump Rape and Defamation Trial.
This post and podcast is an update you on the civil trial involving our ex-president. Thanks to the brave actions of brilliant writer E. Jean Carroll, Trump may eventually be held accountable for his alleged assault on Carroll. And in a small way, it may help other women who have also allegedly been assaulted by Donald Trump.
Assaults, by the way, he bragged about in an Access Hollywood Tape.
This, as I said, is just an update; if you want more information on this case, you can listen to my other podcast episode.
The trial Started on Tuesday, April 25, with Jury Selection. The attorneys gave opening arguments,
Because this is a civil trial, Trump does not have to attend. Trump has denied all the charges.
Wednesday morning. Trump – the coward wrote two posts on social media, attacking E. Jean Carroll, and calling the trial a scam and a witch hunt. In the second post he mentioned Carroll age, and he went into some of the details that are coming out in the Trial. So hes too cowardly to show up in court. He attack her in the comfort of his home.
E. Jean Carroll wakes up on the day she is going t testify and she is being attacked on social media. Being called an old hag, et. Etc.
Wednesday Morning before 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 in area in which your client could face a new liability and I think you know what I mean,” Kaplan said.
Writer E. Jean Carroll took the witness stand for her lawsuit against former President Donald Trump on Wednesday, telling jurors: “I’m here because Trump raped me.”
Again a warning.
These are quotes.
Trump then “shut the door and shoved me against the wall,” Carroll said. “I pushed him back, and he thrust me back against the wall, banging my head.”
“He put his shoulder against me and held me against wall,” she testified. Carroll broke down in tears as she recalled Trump’s penetrating her.
“I couldn’t see anything was happening, but I could certainly feel that pain,” she said.
The attack lasted “very few minutes,” she said, and then she rushed out of the store. She then said she called a friend to tell her what had happened.
Carroll said the friend, writer Lisa Birnbach, who’s expected to testify in the trial, encouraged her to go to the police. She said she responded, “No way.”
“I thought it was my fault,” she said.
Carroll sued Trump for battery over the alleged rape, as well as defamation for his claims that she made up her story to promote sales of her book and raise her public profile.
Since the alleged assault, Carroll told the jury Wednesday, she hasn’t had a romantic relationship with anyone and hasn’t had sex. She said she “always believed” what happened with Trump had a “strong influence” on her inability to find romance.
“I found it impossible to believe that I could meet someone, impossible to even fall in love or have dinner and smile,” said Carroll, who began crying on the stand.
That was Wednesday. On Thursday, it was time for the cross examination by the trump lawyer.
Mr Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina spent Thursday afternoon trying to cast doubt on Ms Carroll’s story. That’s his job.
Again. Trump has denied this assault happened.
When attorney Joseph Tacopina at one point used the word “supposedly,” Carroll responded: “Not supposedly. I was raped.”
Here is where the questioning went. How tacopina tried to show that Carroll is lying.
- Why didn’t she report the rape? She thought it was her fault.
- Why did it take so long for her to report the rape?
- Why didn’t she scream?
- Why can’t she remember the exact date?
Here is how she responded to not screaming.
“I’m telling you he raped me whether I screamed or not,” she responded at one point when pushed on her reaction.
On not being sure of the exact date and time of the rape.
When he repeatedly noted that she could not recall the exact date of the alleged rape, a frustrated Ms. Carroll replied: “I wish to heaven we could give you a date.”
There were also questions about the dress Carroll was wearing when she was attacked.
Carroll and her attorney’s wanted to the dress admitted as evidence.
But Trump refused to provide a DNA sample.
Now he’s making comments about the dress on social media.
The other has to do with her lawsuit against Trump being funded in part by Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn co-founder and a major Democratic donor, and whether Trump’s lawyers will be allowed to argue to jurors that Carroll and her attorneys hid that fact for months.
The Judge ruled that this has nothing to do with this case.
And I think I’m falling in love with Judge Kaplan.
Finally,
Why did it take so long to report the assault? Carroll said she decided to write about it because of the “Me Too” movement when women began telling their stories about sexual assault.
But after she told her story Trump began attacking her. And her life changed. She said people began avoiding her. They wouldn’t look her in the eye. They treated her like she was a liar and a fraud.
She says she is doing this because she wants her life back.
E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump Rape and Defamation Case
Listen to the Podcast - Posted on Monday, April 23, 2023
The Rape and Defamation lawsuit filed by writer E. Jean Carroll against Donald Trump goes to Trial this coming week.
Jury selection will begin on Tuesday, April 25, in a Federal Court in New York.
Trump’s legal team has attempted to delay, delay, delay. But the Judge is not buying it.
The case stems from an alleged attack in a New York department store in the mid-1990s.
Carroll was able to sue Trump thanks to the New York Adult Survivors Act that extends the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims to sue the perpetrators for damages.
Here is the back story.
There was once a beautiful, talented woman named Elizabeth Jean Carroll.
She was born in Detroit, Michigan, but was Raised in Fort Wayne, Indiana.
A Pi Beta Phi and a cheerleader, she was crowned Miss Indiana University in 1963, and in 1964, as a representative of the university, she won the Miss Cheerleader USA title
She appeared on To Tell The Truth in 1965.[10][11]
She has written dozens of articles for some of the best magazines in the world.
She wrote for Saturday Night Live in the mid-1980s – was nominated for an Emmy for that work. She was the first woman to become a contributing editor for Playboy Magazine.
But E. Jean Carroll is most famous for her work from 1993 to 2019. During that time, she wrote a column called “Ask E. Jean.” For Elle Magazine. It became one of the longest-running advice columns in American publishing.
E. Jean. A famous, talented, beautiful woman. She was working in New York, writing for an international fashion Magazine. It was during that time. In the mid-1990s, E. Jean was shopping in a high-end department store called Bergdorf Goodman’s, located less than two blocks from Trump Tower. She ran into Donald Trump. At that time, he was a real estate developer.
He told her she was shopping for a girl. Would she help him pick out a gift? They eventually made their way to the lingerie department. It was there, she says, that he pushed her into a dressing room and raped her.
She said it lasted less than three minutes.
What happened next? She didn’t file rape or assault charges. He said he was powerful; she feared it would ruin her career. Carroll explained later; she said, “I wasn’t a victim of rape. It was a fight. I fought him. And I lost.”
I want to stop for a second and make this comment. How many other women have made the same decision? It doesn’t matter how successful a woman might be. Rich men have more money, more attorneys, and more power.
Carroll told two friends about the alleged attack shortly after it occurred, she did not publicly reveal this incident until she published her 2019 memoir.
Well, do you know who the president was in 2019? Donald J. Trump.
In her 2019 book, What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal, Carroll accused Les Moonves and Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in the mid-1990s.
Les Moonves was CEO and chairman of CBS Corporation.
Both Moonves and Trump denied the allegations.
Trump went much further. He verbally attacked E. Jean. And called her a liar. He said he didn’t know her, then said she’s not my type. She’s unattractive.
Here is a quote.
Trump has repeatedly denied the rape occurred and claims that what Carroll wrote is total fiction. He publicly stated “shame on those who make up false stories of assault . . . to sell a book,” asserting this was a “hoax,” that he never even met her and “she’s not my type.
In November 2019, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit with the New York Supreme Court. The suit states that Trump had damaged her reputation, substantially harmed her professionally, and caused emotional pain.
This is a quote from the lawsuit.
Carroll stated, “Decades ago, the now President of the United States raped me. When I had the courage to speak out about the attack, he defamed my character, accused me of lying for personal gain, and even insulted my appearance.” She stated that she was “filing this (lawsuit) on behalf of every woman who has ever been harassed, assaulted, silenced, or spoken up only to be shamed, fired, ridiculed and belittled.”
After the suit was filed, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham described the case as “frivolous” and claimed Carroll’s story was fraudulent.[52]
Here is what else happened. In 1920, Carroll lost her job. She was fired from a job she loved. And from a job she excelled in.
Carroll was fired from Elle in February 2020; she wrote on Twitter that she was dismissed “Because Trump ridiculed my reputation, laughed at my looks, & dragged me through the mud.”[19]
Elle maintained that the decision to fire Carroll was a business decision unrelated to Trump.
That’s the background. I’m quoting some information on the case from various news sources.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation for impugning her truthfulness and for the tort of battery permitted under the recently enacted New York Adult Survivors Act that extended the statute of limitations for sexual assault victims to sue the perpetrators for damages.
The trial evidence appears to be heavily stacked against Trump. Although Carroll’s case does not depend solely on her testimony, Trump’s defense hinges on Trump’s testimony.
This is clear from recent pre-trial rulings by Judge Lewis Kaplan.
On March 10, 2023, Judge Kaplan ruled that as part of her direct case, Carroll can introduce the testimony of two women who were allegedly sexually assaulted by Trump, one on an airplane and one at Mar-a-Lago during an interview of Trump for People magazine.
Carroll has written about these two women. She’s interviewed them. They have told their stories.
Jessica Leeds on an airplane flight when she met Trump. He invited her to come up to first class.
Leeds, now 74, spoke out in a New York Times report, alleging that Trump groped her on a first-class flight to New York in the early 1980s. She told the Times, “He was like an octopus … His hands were everywhere.”
Leeds was 38 at the time of the alleged assault and says she moved to the back of the plane without reporting the incident to airline staff.
The Maralargo incident will be recounted in the sworn testimony of Natasha Stoynoff. She says Trump invited her into a private room, then pushed her against a wall, allegedly kissing and forcing himself on her.
Both women provide evidence of Trump’s propensity to commit such sexual assaults, as permitted by the rules of evidence.
I have a link to a Yahoo article that lists 19 women who claim the former President assaulted them.
Judge Kaplan has also ruled that Carroll can introduce into evidence Trump’s statements on the “Access Hollywood” tape.
Kaplan found that “in this case, a jury could reasonably find, even from the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted . . . that he has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he attempted to do so.”
At this point, Trump appears to be left with no witnesses to call to dispute these charges other than himself.
You know what that means. He will have to testify.
The problem. Trump’s inability to stop lying. And what will he do if he gets angry under cross-examination? In the past, Trump’s former attorney general recently commented it would be a “particularly bad idea” for Trump to appear on the stand because “he lacks all self-control,” “and it would be very difficult to prepare him and keep him testifying in a prudent fashion.”
This is a Civil. Not a Criminal case. So if he refuses to tell his story or if he pleads the fifth. The jury can conclude he raped E. Jean and then defamed her.
The trial is expected to last about two weeks. We could have a verdict sometime in May. Will the verdict hurt Trump in the long run? Who knows.
