New York writer who accused Trump of sexual assault sues him for defamation

Source: Washington Post



A writer and longtime women’s advice columnist on Monday sued President Trump, accusing him of defaming her this summer after she claimed he sexually assaulted her two decades ago in an upscale New York City department store. E. Jean Carroll publicly described the alleged assault for the first time in June, in a published excerpt of a memoir. At that time and in the new lawuit, she said that after running into the then-real estate developer at Bergdorf Goodman in late 1995 or early 1996, they chatted and shopped together before he 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.

Trump has denied ever meeting her and has said she was trying to promote her book. The White House did not provide immediate comment after the suit was filed Tuesday morning. “I am filing this on behalf of every woman who has ever been harassed, assaulted, silenced, or spoken up only to be shamed, fired, ridiculed and belittled,” said Carroll, who is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, in a statement. “No person in this country should be above the law – including the president.”

One year before the 2020 election, Trump is grappling with a number of legal challenges, including the impeachment inquiry on Capitol Hill and lawsuits targeting his businesses and finances. Carroll filed her lawsuit in New York State Court, where another defamation suit against Trump has cleared some key hurdles. In that case, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality TV show, “The Apprentice,” says Trump groped her and kissed her without permission in 2007. Zervos was among more than a dozen women in the weeks before the 2016 election who accused Trump of sexual impropriety, following the disclosure of a videotape in which he boasted about grabbing women’s genitals. Trump called the women who accused him of wrongdoing “liars,” prompting Zervos’s suit.

But another defamation case against Trump did not survive. Adult-film star Stormy Daniels sued the president last year after he suggested she had lied about being threatened to keep quiet about their alleged affair. A federal judge in Los Angeles dismissed the suit last October, ruling that Trump’s “rhetorical hyperbole” was political and ordering Daniels to pay the president’s legal fees. Carroll’s assertion in the lawsuit that Trump “brutally raped her” stands apart from less violent allegations regarding Trump’s treatment of women. Under New York law, he (sic) alleged incident occurred too long ago to try to press criminal charges.



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