...By Muyiwa Aderinto for TDPel Media.
Donald Trump Rape Accuser Testifies in Court
E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who accused former President Donald Trump of rape, appeared in court on Thursday to testify in her ongoing lawsuit against him.
She claimed that in 1996, Trump raped her in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.
She is suing him for battery and defamation over his comments regarding her allegations.
Trump’s Attack on Social Media
Carroll testified that in October 2022, when Trump called her a liar on social media and denied her claims, she felt a wave of slime from his supporters.
The court was shown tweets from Trump supporters that contained seedy comments and repeated Trump’s statement that she was a liar and in it for the money.
Cross Examination
During cross-examination, Carroll admitted that parts of her story were difficult to conceive and that she only went public with her claims when she was promoting her book “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal” in 2019.
She also admitted that she could not remember the date of the alleged rape and that she regretted filing the lawsuit “five times a day” because she continued to receive threats on social media.
Emails and the MeToo Movement
The jury was shown an email from 2017 in which Carol Martin, a TV journalist and friend of Carroll, called Trump “Orange Crush.”
The email mentioned a scheme to do their “patriotic duty” again.
Carroll admitted that she had no idea what the special thing mentioned could have been but said that the MeToo movement, which began in 2017, was her motivation for writing the book and not Trump.
Satirical Book
Carroll admitted that she couldn’t remember when the incident happened and that the premise of her book was written satirically, referring to Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal.
The book proposed that all men in the US should go to Montana to be retrained.
During cross-examination, she admitted that the idea was written satirically and that she had never gone to the police in the two decades since the alleged rape.
Commentary:
E. Jean Carroll’s testimony in court on Thursday provided insight into her allegations against former President Donald Trump.
Despite cross-examination from Trump’s lawyer, Carroll insisted that the premise of her book was satirical and that the MeToo movement was her motivation for writing it.
However, she did admit that she could not remember the date of the alleged rape and that she only went public with her claims when she was promoting her book.
