“Donald Trump’s Testimony in E. Jean Carroll Rape Trial Released to Public, Defends Himself Against Accusations”

The video of a testimony by Donald Trump, shown Thursday to jurors in the civil trial in New York where the former American president is accused of rape by ex-journalist E. Jean Carroll, was made public on Friday. The media broadcast it immediately.

For 48 minutes, we see Donald Trump, blue tie and white shirt under a dark jacket, defending himself, sometimes in a vehement tone, and answering questions from the plaintiff’s lawyer, a former columnist for the magazine Elle.

The ex-journalist, now 79, accused Donald Trump in a 2019 book of raping her in a dressing room in the lingerie department of a New York luxury department store, Bergdorf Goodman, in the mid-1990s. She then sued him for defamation, then last November for rape in a civil action.

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The Republican billionaire did not show up for the trial which began last week. Extracts from the video, recorded in the proceedings in October 2022, were broadcast during the proceedings in his absence.

“An invention from scratch”

“This is the most ridiculous, disgusting story. It is an invention from scratch, ”he says about the accusations. He describes E. Jean Caroll as a “liar” and a “sick person”. He adds that he does not know the journalist and reaffirms that she is “not [son] gender”. But, once the lawyer shows him a photograph where he is in front of E. Jean Carroll at a party years before their alleged 1996 meeting, he confuses the complainant with his ex-wife Marla. “It’s very vague”, he adds when his lawyer corrects him by whispering to him “it’s [E. Jean] Carroll».

The former president is also invited to react to his remarks in a video, which has become famous, where we hear him in 2005 boasting of kissing and touching the women he likes as he pleases, before adding: “When you you’re a star, they let you. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.”

“It’s historically true for stars […] if you look at the last few million years, I think that’s largely true, not always, but largely, whether we deplore it or not,” he explains. “And do you consider yourself a star?” Asks E’s lawyer. John Carroll. “I think you can say that, yes,” he replies.

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