In Testimony, E. Jean Carroll Accuses Donald Trump of Rape

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NEW YORK (AP) — At first, she thought helping Donald Trump shop for a lingerie gift at a luxury department store would be “a funny New York thing.”

Although, according to E. Jean Carroll, the then-businessman beckoned him into a dressing room as they dared each other to try on a see-through bodysuit, he came up with something like a “Saturday Night Live” he wrote.

But within minutes, “my whole reason for being alive at that moment was to get out of that room,” Carroll testified Wednesday at his rape trial.

“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote this, he said it didn’t happen. He lied and ruined my reputation, and I’m here to try to get my life back,” Carroll told jurors.

From afar, Trump repeated his insistence that Carroll’s 1996 rape allegation was a complete fabrication, writing on his social media site that the case was “a fabricated scam,” and more.

“This is a deceptive and false story — Witch Hunt!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. His comments prompted the judge to warn Trump’s lawyers that he could bring more legal trouble on himself.

Trump has not attended the trial so far, but his lawyers said Tuesday that he may still decide to testify.

The trial comes as Trump again seeks the Republican nomination for president, and weeks after he pleaded not guilty to unrelated criminal charges related to payments made to silence a porn actor who said he had he had sex with her.

Carroll, 79, testified that he crossed paths with Trump at the revolving door to Bergdorf Goodman on an unspecified Thursday evening in the spring of 1996. At the time, he was writing a long-running advice column in Elle magazine, who also wrote for “SNL .” Trump is a real estate magnate and social figure in New York.

He said he asked her for advice on choosing a gift for a girl, and he was happy to oblige. As an advice columnist, asking Trump for guidance “was a great prospect,” and Carroll thought he’d end up with a funny story, he said.

She testified that he suggested a hat, but she turned to underwear, and soon they were joking about the bodysuit. Amused at flirting with him, she went along, laughing even as he closed the door to the dressing room, even as he pushed her against a wall.

But then, she claims, Trump covered her mouth with her, pulled down her pantyhose and pushed his hand and then his penis inside her as she struggled against him.

He says he finally brought her to her knees, ran away and, for years, blamed herself.

“I always wonder why I went in there to put myself in that situation,” he said, his voice cracking.

She said that for decades, she told no one but two friends because she feared Trump would retaliate, because she “thought it was my fault” and because she thought many people blamed rape victims for what happened to them.

The alleged assault occurred long before the #MeToo movement forced a reckoning with how law enforcement treated and the public viewed victims of sexual assault. Carroll said #MeToo strengthened her decision to move forward in 2019.

Trump, 76, said he was not in the store with Carroll and had no idea who she was when he first went public with the story in a 2019 memoir and accompanying magazine excerpt.

As court gets underway on Wednesday, Trump aired his feelings about it on Truth Social.

Among his other remarks, he called Carroll’s attorney “a political operative” and cited a DNA issue that Judge Lewis A. Kaplan ruled could not be part of the case.

Lawyers for Carroll — whose lawsuit includes claims that Trump previously disparaged her by publicly calling her case a “fraud,” “fraud,” “lie” and “complete con job ” – referring to his new statement to Kaplan. He was not happy.

“What seems to be the case is that your client is generally trying, certainly to talk to his quote-unquote public – but, more disturbingly, the jury in this case – about things that have no business talking about,” said the judge Trump’s lawyers. He called Trump’s post “a public statement that, on its face, seems completely inappropriate.”

Trump attorney Joe Tacopina said jurors were told not to follow any news or online commentary about the case. But he said he would ask Trump to “avoid any further posts about this case.”

“I hope you’re more successful,” Kaplan said, adding that Trump “may or may not be stepping into a new source of potential liability.”

Carroll’s federal lawsuit seeks unspecified damages and a reprieve for his allegedly defamatory comments.

The lawsuit was filed under a New York law that temporarily allows decades-old sexual abuse claims to go to civil court. He did not pursue criminal charges.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they go public, as Carroll did.

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