Trump Lawyers Set To Attack Writer's Rape Claim At Civil Trial

Donald Trump's legal team was expected to attack the credibility of former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll on Thursday, as a civil trial resumed over her claim that the former U.S. president raped her and lied about it.

Carroll has testified in graphic detail about how Trump allegedly assaulted her in a department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.

Trump has consistently denied the allegations and claimed that Carroll made them up to sell books and hurt him politically.

Carroll told jurors in Manhattan federal court that Trump's subsequent denials shredded her reputation and ruined her career, costing her most of her millions of readers.

Her cross-examination was expected to get under way on Thursday.

Carroll is seeking unspecified damages from Trump, who leads the Republican field in the 2024 presidential campaign. The trial began on Tuesday.

She is suing over an alleged encounter in the Bergdorf Goodman luxury department store in Midtown Manhattan in late 1995 or early 1996.

Carroll testified that Trump, who had been shopping for another woman, coaxed her into a dressing room, slammed her into a wall, and raped her.

The lawsuit includes a battery claim under the Adult Survivors Act, a 2022 New York state law letting adults who claim they were sexually abused sue their alleged attackers even if statutes of limitations have run out.

Carroll is also suing for defamation over an October 2022 post by Trump on his Truth Social platform where he called the rape a hoax and scam, said Carroll was "not my type!" and accused Carroll of concocting a tale to sell her memoir.

On Thursday, prior to cross-examination, Carroll finished being questioned by her lawyer Michael Ferrara.

She maintained that suing Trump was a means of "getting my name back" and denied she did it for publicity or revenge.

Carroll also said she had been subjected to a "wave of slime" from "almost an endless stream of people" who repeated Trump's post.

"I like attention," she said. "I don't particularly like getting attention for suing Donald Trump. Getting attention for being raped is hard."

Carroll also explained why she had sued Trump only for defamation and not over the alleged rape in 2019 after he first denied her accusations, in a lawsuit that remains pending. The Adult Survivors Act had not been law at the time.

"This act gives us a chance to be heard," she said.

Trump is not attending the trial and his presence is not required.

He scorned the case in Wednesday posts on Truth Social, saying Carroll was promoting a "fraudulent & false story." His son Eric also attacked Carroll in a Twitter post.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who oversees the trial, twice advised Trump's legal team to speak with the former president about discussing the trial publicly.