During a long-awaited deposition, Donald Trump’s attorney pressed the writer about her claims after she sued him for defamation over his claim that she falsely claimed he assaulted her in a Manhattan department store.
In support of her claim that Trump has already gathered the majority of the evidence, he requires a potential joint trial in April of two cases—her 2019 defamation lawsuit and a battery lawsuit she filed against him last month—E. Jean Carroll filed a partial transcript of the October testimony late Monday in federal court in New York.
Due to the new case, Trump is attempting to postpone the trial until later in 2023.
According to the transcript, Carroll’s love life and emotional struggles, as well as brand-new facts concerning the claimed 1990s assault, were all elicited by Trump attorney Alina Habba. Habba questioned the witness about the nature of the supposed encounter.
According to the deposition transcript from October 14, she asked Carroll, “Have you ever questioned whether what happened in that changing room was rape.”
‘He Put Me Up Against the Wall’: E. Jean Carroll’s Deposition Details Alleged Rape by Donald Trump Inside Bergdorf Goodman Dressing Roomhttps://t.co/pInrkg4eVY
— Law & Crime (@lawcrimenews) December 20, 2022
Carroll remarked, “I wonder whether he believed it was rape. I never questioned my opinions.
Habba questioned Carroll about whether she had yelled during the alleged assault. Carroll responded that she hadn’t while refocusing the inquiry on the attorney.
Why didn’t you scream? Why did you come forward when you did? is a question that every woman who acknowledges being attacked must respond to, she added.
A mail for comment on the file from Monday went unanswered by Habba. The deposition’s specifics weren’t previously disclosed to the public.
On Wednesday, a judge will hear arguments over the dates of the two cases and whether they should be combined.
As Trump prepares to run for president in 2024 and as he encounters numerous additional legal challenges, the litigation is reaching a breaking point. The congressional committee looking into the circumstances surrounding the attack on the Capitol last year recommended on Monday that he be charged for his part.
According to the transcript of the deposition, Habba once questioned Carroll, 79, about why she didn’t immediately go public with her claim following the alleged assault.
Carroll said, “I’m going to say something that even surprises me because women who have been raped are looked down upon, are viewed as spoilt goods and are considered rather foolish to have allowed themselves to be attacked.
When questioned by Habba, Carroll responded that the possibility that Trump would run for president once more in 2020 had nothing to do with her decision to go public in 2019.
Carroll’s attorney deposed Trump, who claims Carroll made up the attack and that he had never even met her, at his Mar-a-Lago resort. The transcript portion that was included in Monday’s filing was entirely redacted.
Carroll, who published the first account of the alleged rape at Bergdorf Goodman in New York magazine in 2019, testified that she ran into Trump while out shopping, they chatted as they browsed, and then they went into the deserted lingerie section where Trump claimed he wanted to buy something for a woman.
She went into great detail about the alleged rape that came after, as well as her escape when she claimed she finally pushed him away with her knee. In her testimony, Carroll—a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine—described her conversation with Trump before the alleged assault.
She claimed he had mused about buying the upscale department store and made light of her age at the time, which was 52.
She claimed that when a friend she confided in later revealed that she had been raped, she was shocked.
She admitted, “I knew I wasn’t going to ever tell anybody about this.”
In her testimony, Carroll also mentioned that she hasn’t had sex since the encounter, which she claimed has contributed to her suffering and could be compensated for in the event that she prevails in her battery claim. She claimed that since then, she had also dated sparingly.
It wasn’t for lack of effort, she insisted. “I wanted to socialize. The music had stopped, so I simply —
Why, in your opinion, did the music stop? Habba enquired.
Well, now that I think about it, it might have been what occurred at Bergdorf’s.
Carroll v. Trump, 22-cv-10016, US District Court, Southern District of New York, is the name of the defamation case (Manhattan).
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