Former US President Donald Trump Faces New Trial for Defamation in Alleged Rape Funds

One more legal casserole for Donald Trump. Less than a month after being the first president in the history of the United States to be criminally indicted, in the Stormy Daniels case, a new trial opens today against the former American president, this time for defamation of the former journalist of the magazine Elle, Elizabeth Jean Carroll, who accused him of rape. In Manhattan Federal Civil Court, jurors begin selecting today and will determine the amount of any damages to be awarded to the plaintiff.

In an interview given to New York Magazine in June 2019, she revealed that she had been raped in the 1990s by the Republican president, in a fitting room at the New York luxury store Bergdorf Goodman. “He lowers his fly and sticks his fingers in my private parts, then his penis”, told the former columnist to the magazine, for which she had posed in One, dressed in the same black dress as at the time of the facts. The one who was then still president directly refutes the accusations and calls them “hoax and complete lie”.

A month later, Elizabeth Jean Carroll publishes her book «What do we need men for», where she denounces the 21 most perverse men she has met, and returns to the rape that Donald Trump allegedly subjected her to. New swerve of the billionaire, with the elegance that we know him: he assures that the ex-journalist is not “his kind of women” and that his book “should be placed in the fiction department”. To defend, he even denied knowing the alleged victim as a photo shows him hilariously with her at a reception in 1997.

Twenty accusations against Trump

In November 2019, the writer sued her alleged attacker for defamation in civil proceedings. As for the rape charges, she did not press charges because the facts were prescribed and Trump had presidential immunity. Until a law comes into force last November in the State of New York. The Adult Survivors Act allows victims of sexual assault to resume their civil lawsuit within one year. Elizabeth Jean Carroll therefore reiterated her complaint for “defamation” by adding the mentions “assault” (act violating human rights) and “assault”.

At 79, she hopes to obtain damages at the end of the trial, accusing Donald Trump of “having groped, groped and raped her”. Absent from court, the former president reaffirmed his line of defense in his sworn deposition in October: “I will say this with the greatest respect: first of all, she is not my type; then it never happened.”

Twenty women have already pinned Donald Trump for similar facts. The billionaire, who called in 2005 to “catch” the women “by pussy”, is known for his ultra-misogynistic outings. If this had not prevented him from conquering the White House in 2016, the succession of legal affairs questions his ability to achieve this again in 2024. For the moment, this is not slowing down his presidential ambitions, quite the contrary.