Magazine columnist alleges Trump raped her at a store two decades ago

New York: E Jean Carroll, a New York-based writer and longtime women’s advice columnist, accused President Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her more than two decades ago in a dressing room of an upscale Manhattan department store, an episode detailed in a book excerpt published Friday in New York magazine.
In an interview with The Washington Post on Friday afternoon, Carroll reiterated the allegations, saying that during a chance encounter with the then-real estate developer at Bergdorf Goodman in late 1995 or early 1996, Trump attacked her in a dressing room. She said he knocked her head against a wall, pulled down her tights and briefly penetrated her before she pushed him off and ran out.
She said she hoped that telling her story “will empower women to come forward and not feel bad. . . . I blamed myself and I was silent and I felt guilty. I beat up myself terrible.”
Carroll, now 75, said she told two close friends about the episode at the time. One of them told The Post on Friday that Carroll described the incident to her shortly after it occurred and that she had unsuccessfully urged Carroll to go to the police.
Trump vigorously denied the accusation, calling it “fake news.” He questioned why there was no video footage of the incident or witnesses in the store.
“I’ve never met this person in my life,” the president said in a statement. “She is trying to sell a new book – that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section.”
The New York magazine piece includes a photo provided by Carroll of what appears to be Trump pictured from behind, standing with his then-wife, Ivana, and Carroll’s then-husband, John Johnson, at what Carroll said was an NBC party around 1987.
In his statement, Trump asked that anyone who has information that Carroll or the magazine were working with the Democratic Party to come forward. “It is a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations,” he said.
Carroll, a registered Democrat, said she voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. She donated $1,000 this cycle to Emily’s List, which supports female candidates who back abortion rights, and $500 to President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign in 2012, according to campaign finance records. On Twitter, she has posted several sharp remarks about Trump and retweets of satirical and critical articles about him.
“This is not political,” Carroll said of her decision to talk publicly about Trump. “Sexual violence is not political.”
Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, is among 16 women who have publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the past several decades. Most spoke out just weeks before the 2016 election, after The Post published a recording of Trump bragging during a 2005 “Access Hollywood” interview that his celebrity gave him permission to grab women by their genitals.
Trump has denied the allegations and called the women “liars.”
One Trump accuser, former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, is suing the president for defamation in New York, a case in which her lawyers may have the opportunity to question him under oath. Zervos alleges that Trump forcibly kissed and groped her at the Beverly Hills Hotel in December 2007.
Carroll’s allegation about Trump is among the most violent of the accusations against him. His ex-wife, Ivana, said in a divorce deposition that he “raped” her in 1989, but later said, “I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”
Carroll said she didn’t come forward in 2016 because other women did, adding that she “didn’t have the guts.” But now, inspired by the #MeToo movement that began in late 2017, she said, “It’s time. It’s time.”
She said she felt like she had disappointed all the readers of her “Ask E. Jean” column in Elle magazine who have confided in her about their problems with men over the past 26 years. Like many of the women who told her they had been sexually assaulted, Carroll said she blamed herself for the incident. “I thought I was stupid,” she said. “I really thought I had done it.”
Carroll spoke by phone to The Post hours after New York magazine posted an online excerpt of her forthcoming book, “What Do We Need Men For?” She also did interviews Friday with other news organizations, her publicist said.
Trump is among a number of men who forced themselves on her, Carroll alleges in her book. She writes that Les Moonves, the once-powerful chief executive of CBS who resigned a year ago after several women accused him of sexual misconduct, grabbed her in an elevator of a Beverly Hills hotel after she interviewed him for a 1997 Esquire magazine story.
“He went at me like an octopus,” she said. “I actually thought he had grown extra arms.”
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