Don & plaintiff to testify early in April trial
E. Jean Carroll and Donald Trump are set to testify against each other at the civil trial in which the writer is suing the former president for sexual battery and defamation, according to new court filings.
Both are listed as the first potential witness their lawyers will call at the trial starting April 25.
Trump’s lawyers also plan to call CNN host Anderson Cooper, New York Magazine editor David Haskell and Carroll’s friends, whom she claims she told about the alleged assault, according to the filing.
Carroll plans to call many of her closest confidantes and former White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham, among other witnesses.
On Tuesday, Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan said the trial would commence this spring after Trump’s lawyers asked to push it back to summer.
The judge hasn’t said whether he will consolidate two lawsuits Carroll has filed against Trump. Both center on Carroll’s claims that the former president raped her inside Bergdorf Goodman between the fall of 1995 and the spring of 1996.
The veteran New York lifestyle journalist, 79, says she still has the dress she wore during the encounter, which she never washed, and believes has traces of Trump’s DNA.
Carroll’s claims first came to light in 2019 when New York Magazine published an excerpt of her tell-all memoir “What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal,” in which she includes Trump among a list of “hideous men” she accuses of sexual assault.
She said the alleged rape happened after she bumped into Trump on her way out of the store on W. 58th St and Fifth Ave. Trump, who was then married to his second wife, Marla Maples, allegedly asked her to help choose a present for a “girl” and they wound up in a closed-off lingerie section, where Carroll says the assault occurred.
“The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips,” Carroll wrote in the book.
In response, Trump told reporters Carroll’s claims could not be true as she was not his “type,” and called her a liar, prompting her to sue for defamation.
The libel suit bogged down after it was moved to federal court when Trump argued he couldn’t be sued because he was president. The Justice Department under President Biden continues to defend that argument, claiming it wasn’t Trump it was trying to shield but federal employees from lawsuits. The matter is currently before the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Carroll filed a second suit against Trump in November when New York temporarily lifted the statute of limitations for sexual assault survivors to sue their alleged assailants. She also filed new defamation claims because Trump once again called her liar after he left the White House.