Trump rape accuser expected in court amid defamation suit

A woman who says President Donald Trump raped her in the 1990s is expected to be in court to hear lawyers argue whether Trump can substitute the United States for himself as the defendant in her defamation lawsuit.

E. Jean Carroll’s lawyers will argue that Trump cannot claim he was acting in an official capacity when he made statements denying the encounter with Carroll in a luxury department store dressing room in midtown Manhattan.

Justice Department attorneys say Trump had to respond in June 2019 to accusations Carroll made against him in a book because the claims related to his fitness for office.

The arguments are taking place in Manhattan federal court before Judge Lewis A. Kaplan. Unlike most proceedings these days, the lawyers will be in a courtroom. Kaplan is expected to rule later in a written opinion.

Carroll sued last year, saying defamatory attacks by Trump include assertions that Carroll had falsely accused other men of rape, that she lied about him to advance a secret political conspiracy and sell books and that he had never met her — even though they’d been photographed together. Her lawyers noted Trump also had said: “She’s not my type.”

Carroll was a 52-year-old media figure hosting an advice show when she says the encounter with Trump occurred sometime between the fall of 1995 and spring of 1996.

They recognized one another from each other’s media exposure and Carroll was struck “by his boyish good looks,” according to her lawsuit.

When Trump asked for her help to get a gift for “a girl,” Carroll “was surprised but thrilled that Trump would want her advice” and the search eventually led to the store’s lingerie section, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said they ended up together in a dressing room after teasing each other to try on a see-through lilac gray bodysuit. Once there, Trump closed the door, pushed her against a wall, bumped her head twice against a wall and pulled down her tights before raping her, the lawsuit said.

— AP