(Trigger warning: Some readers may find details of this report disturbing. Discretion is advised.)
E. Jean Carroll, a former magazine columnist, testified against former Donald Trump in a shocking revelation Wednesday saying the former US president raped her at a New York City department store.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Carroll testified. “He lied and shattered my reputation and I’m here to try to get my life back.”
Carroll accused Trump of raping her at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store based on Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York, in the spring of 1996.
She said after raping her Trump defamed her when she spoke the truth and let the cat out of the bag. Carroll is suing Trump for battery and defamation. However, Trump refuted her claims.
Carroll testified that she was “delighted” to go shopping with Trump because she felt it would be a nice story to share with her friends.
“Well, it was such a funny New York scene,” Carroll said adding, “I love to give advice and here was Donald Trump asking me for advice about buying a present.”
“I was absolutely enchanted, I could only think of it as a scene that is such a great story,” Carroll said.
According to her testimony, once they took the escalator from the first floor, Carroll was too preoccupied with Trump to observe anybody else.
“I wasn’t looking, I was watching him and watching that I didn’t fall when the escalator hit the top.”
Carroll noted that she was likely flirting with Trump in a non-intimate and non-serious manner before the alleged assault.
When the two made their way to the lingerie department, Carroll said the “comedy was escalating” but it never occurred to her that Trump might try to rape her. Trump directed Carroll to try on a sheer grey bodysuit. She playfully suggested that he put it on instead, Carroll said.
Carroll testified on Wednesday that she had no intention of trying on the garment but had instead followed Trump’s gesture into the changing room in the hope that it would make for a humorous “Saturday Night Live” sketch.
“I didn’t picture anything about what was about to happen,” she said Wednesday. “That open door has plagued me for years because I just walked into it, walked in.”
Carroll described how, despite her protests, Trump reportedly pushed her up against the wall and ultimately placed his fingers and then his penis into her. She remembered the ache in her vagina and the back of her head.
Carroll, who was getting upset on the witness stand, paused for a long time as her lawyer questioned what she did after Trump reportedly forcibly entered her.
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“When you ask me what I did in that moment,” Carroll said as tears brimmed her eyes. “I always think – I always think of why I walked in there to get myself in that situation. But I’m proud to say I did get out, I got my knee up and pushed him back.”
Carroll claimed that the alleged assault by Trump only lasted a few minutes and that her adrenaline kept her from feeling scared.
“This is going to sound strange: I was almost too frightened to think if I was afraid or not, I was stamping (my feet),” she said. “My whole reason for being alive in that moment was to get out of that room.”
“It was very stupid,” Carroll said on the stand, choking up. “It changed – I know people have been through a lot worse than this but it had – it left me – it left me unable to ever have a romantic life again.”
Carroll admitted she didn’t seek medical assistance but remembers having discomfort and that it took her some time to settle down that night.
“I was extremely rattled, I didn’t know who I was, I couldn’t believe that it happened, I couldn’t believe that it happened to me,” she said.
Carroll testified that she contacted Lisa Birnbach, the funniest person she knew, as soon as she left the store. “If Lisa thought it was funny then it was not a bad thing and I didn’t completely do a stupid thing,”
According to Carroll’s testimony, Birnbach informed Carroll, who was laughing on the phone, that it wasn’t funny, that Carroll had been raped, and that she should report it to the police.
Carroll however felt ashamed and the two ultimately decided to never bring it up again. “Because I was flirting with him and laughing having one of the great times and it was high comedy, it was funny and then to have it turned into that,” Carroll said.
Carroll admitted in court that she is a registered Democrat and that she believes Trump is “evil” and “vile” and was a terrible president. She also insisted that her political opinions had nothing to do with the litigation she is pursuing.
“I’m not settling a political score,” Carroll said. “I’m settling a personal score because he called me a liar repeatedly and it really has decimated my reputation. I’m a journalist – the one thing I have to have is the trust of the readers.”
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