Trump accuses ex-wife of sexual assault survivor in trial testimony

New York:

After claiming she “wasn’t my type,” Donald Trump named his sexual assault accuser E. Jean Carroll for his ex-wife Marla Maples in testimony for his trial against the former president. Amazingly misunderstood.

Excerpts from a statement by Trump released on Tuesday saw him potentially undermining one of his key defenses against Ms Carroll’s allegation that he raped her in a New York department store changing room in the mid-1990s Was.

Ms Carroll, who is now 79, said in a 2019 interview with “The Hill” that she was “absolutely lying” and simply trying to market her book, after the sexual assault and sued Trump for both defamation.

In an October 19 statement, Trump reiterated his often made claim that he could not have followed or raped her in the changing room of a Bergdorf Goodman store because he is not attracted to women who look like Ms. Carroll.

“I’ll say this with a lot of respect. Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it’s never happened,” he said.

He reiterated the statement when asked directly about the incident alleged in the statement.

“Physically she is not my type, and now that I have heard things about her indirectly, she will not be my type in any way, shape or form.”

But when he was shown a photo of himself with Carroll and others at a reception in the 1990s, Trump said, “That’s Marla, that’s my wife,” before being corrected by his own lawyer. .

Trump, 76, was married to his second wife Ms Maples from 1993 to 1999. He started dating his current wife Melania Trump in 1998.

Ms. Carroll, a columnist for “Elle” magazine in the 1990s and later a writer for other major publications, did not go public with her allegations at the time of the incident.

But in 2019 he promoted it in a new book, which provoked Trump’s denial.

Then in November, after a new New York law designed to protect victims of sexual assault was enacted decades after the assault, Ms. Carroll expanded her case by suing Trump for assault.

The suit seeks monetary damages for psychological harm, pain and suffering, loss of honor and damage to his reputation.

The court took testimony from the two in the defamation case in October and the judge said the trial would open on April 10.

Trump could have been acquitted of defamation because he made the initial statements against Ms. Carroll while he was president.

But he has continued to make comments, including an October social media post in which he called her story “a hoax and a lie” and his book “an outright scam.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)