In 2019, Donald Trump was sued by former Elle columnist and television host, E. Jean Carroll, for defamation after the former President denied allegations that he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s. At the time, she claimed his comments caused her emotional pain and damaged her reputation.
Three years later, Carroll filed a second lawsuit against Trump for both battery and defamation – which was allowed under New York’s Adult Survivors Act. She hopes to hold Trump accountable for raping her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman – a department store – while he was married to Ivana Trump.
“Roughly 27 years ago, playful banter at the luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in New York City took a dark turn when Defendant Donald J. Trump seized Plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, forced her up against a dressing room wall, pinned her in place with his shoulder, and raped her,” Carroll claims.
While the first lawsuit is currently at a standstill, the second lawsuit recently went to trial as Donald Trump faces potential punishment for his actions – the trial began on April 25 at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Carroll has received a resounding amount of support thus far.
As part of the new trial, a variety of documents have been unsealed for the public to see – including a video deposition by Donald Trump. One particular moment during that deposition is going viral as an apparent gaffe by Trump is now being used by Carroll’s legal team against the former President in court.
Given a black-and-white photograph of himself with his ex-wife, Ivana Trump, his rape accuser, E. Jean Carroll, and her then-husband, John Johnson. As he was describing the photo, he originally struggled to identify one of the women in the photo and ultimately settled on it being his ex-wife, Marla Maples.
The woman he was pointing to wasn’t Marla Maples, though – it was E. Jean Carroll. It wasn’t until his attorney, Alina Habba, corrected him that he realized his mistake – which he blamed on the photo being ‘very blurry.’ The former President previously claimed to have never met E. Jean Carroll in his life.
E. Jean Carroll’s Attorneys Using the Gaffe Against Donald Trump
In a 2019 interview with The Hill, Donald Trump ‘vehemently’ denied the allegations brought forth by E. Jean Carroll. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” he said – a statement that is now being used against him in court.
With Trump mistaking Carroll for his ex-wife in the video deposition, Carroll’s attorneys can now claim that E. Jean Carroll is, in fact, Trump’s ‘type’ – using his own words against him. In his The Hill interview, Trump also alleged that he knew ‘nothing about this woman’ and denounced her sexual abuse allegation.
“When confronted with the photo of Carroll and himself from a party before the rape, Trump twice misidentified Carroll as his ex-wife Marla Maples, insisting it was Maples smiling at him in the photo, when in fact the woman he was pointing to was Carroll herself,” her attorney said, according to new documents.
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As Trump’s past and present comments are being ripped apart in court, he’s left with an uphill battle as his lawyers try to mitigate the damage. In the event Carroll wins the lawsuit, it would be the first time former President Donald Trump is held accountable and legally responsible for sexual abuse allegations.
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