The Secret Barrister by The Secret Barrister

She said she would have kept the accusation secret forever if not for the the #MeToo movement, which gained prominence in 2017. “Then he put his mouth against mine,” she said, “and I understood.”Ĭarroll said Trump yanked down her tights and raped her before she kneed him and fled. “I was trying to figure out what the hell was going on,” Carroll testified as jurors listened attentively. Even when he slammed the door and shoved her into the wall, she said, she couldn’t help but laugh and think there had been some mistake or misunderstanding. The lawyer underscored, through his questions, that she didn't seek help from anyone in the store as she allegedly fled by riding six flights down an escalator, didn't ask about security video and didn't seek medical attention or call police.Ĭarroll said she initially felt charmed by Trump as he asked for her help finding a women's gift, exchanged jokes with her about trying on a see-through garment and led her into a dressing room. Seeking to make that point, Tacopina questioned Carroll about her testimony that she eventually fought Trump off while wearing 4-inch (10 cm) heels and without letting go of her purse. She did, however, concede that some details of her story - including the lack of witnesses in a department store - were “difficult to conceive of.” Carroll, that you were raped,” Tacopina said.

“Not ‘supposedly.’ I was raped,” she said. When Tacopina used the word “supposedly” to cast doubt on her claim, she immediately and sternly rebuked him. On Wednesday, the writer took the stand to tell jurors that Donald Trump assaulted her in a department store in 1996.īut, she emphasized, “I don't need an excuse for not screaming.” She had explained in earlier testimony that she was “not a screamer - I'm a fighter.”Ĭarroll, 79, said that if she were lying about the assault, she would’ve told people she had screamed because “more people would have believed me.” “You can’t beat up on me because I didn’t scream,” Carroll forcefully told Tacopina.

She says it happened after a chance run-in with Trump at luxury retailer Bergdorf Goodman in spring 1996.

The outburst drew a rebuke and a warning from Kaplan, who called it “entirely inappropriate.”Ĭonsistent and unruffled in her second day of testimony, Carroll grew frustrated as Tacopina zeroed in on how she says she behaved during the alleged assault.

On Wednesday, Trump launched a counterattack against the trial on social media, telling followers on his Truth Social platform that the case was “a made up SCAM” and alluding to a DNA issue that Judge Lewis A. Suspect in Massacre of 5 Neighbors in Texas Allegedly Beat His Wife Last Year, Prosecutor Says

The Secret Barrister by The Secret Barrister