WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump held a press convention on Friday that was alleged to be about him interesting a $5 million verdict that discovered him answerable for sexually abusing recommendation columnist E. Jean Carroll within the Nineteen Nineties.
As an alternative, for almost 45 minutes, Trump stood in entrance of a microphone ranting about Carroll and one other lady who accused him of sexual assault, after which left with out taking any questions.
“I by no means touched her,” Trump stated of Carroll, throughout the New York Metropolis occasion. “I might have had little interest in assembly her. … She made up a narrative, fabricated 100%, that I attacked her.”
With none proof, he accused Carroll of stealing her story from an episode of a well-liked authorized drama TV collection.
“Her favourite present is ‘Regulation & Order,’” Trump claimed. “There’s an virtually actual story as her story in ‘Regulation & Order’ about being attacked within the dressing room of a division retailer.”
“That’s her favourite present, ‘Regulation & Order,’” he repeated. “She stated that.”
The Republican presidential nominee had simply been in a federal courtroom together with his attorneys, who argued that Carroll’s civil lawsuit in opposition to him in Could 2023 must be overturned as a result of it relied on improper proof. The jury in that case concluded that Trump had attacked Carroll in a luxurious division retailer dressing room in 1996 and awarded her $5 million.
In Jan. 2024, a second jury awarded Carroll one other $83.3 million for defamation, after Trump made derogatory feedback about her when he was president. The choose in that case instructed the jury that it needed to first settle for the earlier jury’s discovering that Trump had sexually assaulted Carroll.
Throughout Friday’s remarks, in his efforts to discredit Carroll, Trump rambled his method into attacking one other lady who had accused him of sexually assaulting her on an airplane a long time in the past.
“She stated … we turned very intimate,” he stated, recounting her allegations, because the attorneys standing behind him began looking uncomfortable. “She stated I used to be making out along with her. After which after quarter-hour … that I grabbed her at a sure half, and that was when she had sufficient.”
Trump scoffed that this might have occurred on a business flight.
“I begin kissing her and making out along with her. What are the probabilities of that taking place?” he stated, including, “I do know you’re going to say it’s a horrible factor to say, but it surely couldn’t have occurred, and … she wouldn’t have been the chosen one.”
Earlier than leaving the occasion and ignoring questions shouted at him by reporters, Trump blamed his authorized crew for failing him in his 2023 trial.
“I’m dissatisfied in my authorized expertise, to be trustworthy with you,” he stated, as a few of his attorneys stood subsequent to him. “I needed to indicate as much as the primary trial. My lawyer, who is just not up right here, not with us any longer, stated, ‘Sir, you shouldn’t present up.’”
HuffPost used to maintain a operating tally of all the ladies who’ve publicly accused Trump of sexual assault or rape. We could have misplaced monitor after the numbers surpassed two dozen.
Need assistance? Go to RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
