The writer E Jean Carroll is ‘living for the day’ she faces ex-President in court over sex attack claims
DURING a December visit to New York City, writer E Jean Carroll says she went shopping with a fashion consultant to find the “best outfit” for one of the most important days of her life – when she’ll sit face-to-face with the man she accuses of raping her decades ago, former President Donald Trump.
The author and journalist hopes that day will come this year. Her lawyers are seeking to depose Mr Trump in a defamation lawsuit that Ms Carroll filed against the former president in November 2019 after he denied her accusation that he raped her at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Mr Trump said he never knew Ms Carroll and accused her of lying to sell her new book, adding: “She’s not my type.”
She plans to be there if Mr Trump is deposed.
“I am living for the moment to walk into that room to sit across the table from him,” Ms Carroll told Reuters in an interview. “I think of it every day.”
Ms Carroll (77), a former Elle magazine columnist, seeks unspecified damages in her lawsuit and a retraction of Mr Trump’s statements. It is one of two defamation cases involving sexual misconduct allegations against Mr Trump that could move forward faster now that he has left the presidency. While in office, Mr Trump’s lawyers delayed the case in part by arguing that the pressing duties of his office made responding to civil lawsuits impossible.
“The only barrier to proceeding with the civil suits was that he’s the president,” said Jennifer Rodgers, a former federal prosecutor and now an adjunct professor of clinical law at the New York University School of Law.
“I think there will be a sense among the judges that it’s time to get a move on in these cases,” said Roberta Kaplan, Ms Carroll’s attorney.
An attorney for Mr Trump and another representative of the former president did not respond to requests for comment. Mr Trump faces a similar defamation lawsuit from Summer Zervos, a former contestant on his reality television show The Apprentice. In 2016, Ms Zervos accused Mr Trump of sexual misconduct, saying that he kissed her against her will at a 2007 meeting in New York and later groped her at a California hotel as the two met to discuss job opportunities.
Mr Trump denied the allegations and called Ms Zervos a liar, prompting her to sue him for defamation in 2017, seeking damages and a retraction. Mr Trump tried unsuccessfully to have the case dismissed, arguing that, as president, he was immune from suits filed in state courts. His lawyers appealed to the New York Court of Appeals, which is still considering the case. Ms Zervos filed a motion in early February asking the court to resume the case now that Mr Trump is no longer president.
Ms Zervos and Ms Carroll are among more than two dozen women who have publicly accused Mr Trump of sexual misconduct that they say occurred in the years before he became president. Other accusers include a former model who claims Mr Trump sexually assaulted her at the 1997 US Open tennis tournament; a former Miss Universe pageant contestant who said Mr Trump groped her in 2006; and a reporter who alleges Mr Trump forcibly kissed her without her consent in 2005 at his Mar-a-Lago resort.
Mr Trump has denied the allegations.
“This defamation suit is not about me,” said Ms Carroll. It’s about every woman “who can’t speak up”.