E. Gene Carroll: ‘Invincible Old Lady’ tells Trump’s rape trial years of agony | Donald Trump

For decades, America has seen the one face of E Jean Carroll.

The sophisticated Elle magazine advice columnist, Emmy-nominated while writing for Saturday Night Live, new york I attended media parties and found my own “snack” at the fancy department stores on Fifth Avenue.

Recently, a New York jury saw another face.That of a Woman Hiding a Dark Secret Price – Her Alleged Rape donald trump more than a quarter of a century ago.

Carroll’s world and the nine jurors being asked to come to an unprecedented conclusion that a former and possibly future president is a rapist are unlikely to have collided. Six men and three women. work mostly in blue-collar jobs. Four of her, including immigrants from West Africa, are black.

The chances of shopping at the overpriced Bergdorf Goodman, which Carroll says was assaulted, or attending the TV studio parties Trump was likely to encounter when he was primarily known as a real estate mogul. It seems low.

Dressed in designer clothes and taking the witness stand, Carole was asked at one point to explain the meaning of couture, explaining the exclusivity of Bergdorf Goodman, whose shoppers are clients, not customers.

But Carroll, who gave a glimpse into that tenuous world during hours of testimony in a civil lawsuit against the former president for assault and defamation, saw Trump pin her to the backstage wall, 1996. raped her on

For 20 years, Carroll spoke of the alleged attack to no one but a few close friends.

She had the public self of an “invincible granny,” she said. To her readers, she was her columnist with glamorous advice to “be well and want to help everyone.”

And then there was the woman who was left behind by Trump’s assault allegations. “Private E Jean”.

“It’s someone who can’t admit out loud that they have suffered,” she cried, telling the jury.

Carol kept her composure during most of the lengthy testimony, but sometimes it broke. Through tears, she said her rape allegations ruined her romantic life at age 53.

“When you meet a potential man, it’s impossible to even look at him and smile,” she said.

Carol explained that her friends realized she had no men in her life and fixed her up with what she described as the “perfect” date. I said I couldn’t go to

Asked bluntly if she had had sex since the day Trump allegedly attacked her, Carroll said no.

“Fundamentally, I am a happy human being. But I realize that I have lost one of my glorious human experiences. I don’t have it,” she said.

“I am aware of how much I have lost and feel that I should be able to overcome it.”

Instead, she was a distressed aunt who didn’t follow the advice she offered others.Carol didn’t seek medical attention. Only she could see her pain.

Carroll’s case against Trump is assigned to the top floor of the towering federal courthouse next to the Brooklyn Bridge, with extra security in case the former president shows up and decides to tell his version of events. But television cameras and lines of reporters outside the courthouse weren’t there to record Carroll’s allegations. Singer Ed Sheeran testified five floors down in a copyright dispute. was

Carroll has been candid about her desire for male company — “Oh, I like them,” she told jurors at one point — even though some, including Trump, abused her. , all men who satirically suggested should be sent to Montana for retraining.

She’s not ashamed to admit she was “fascinated” by Trump, and she browsed with Bergdorf Goodman on the day he allegedly attacked her, perhaps looking for a gift for his female friend. But after she detailed Trump’s alleged assault, in which she described him as “churning in my vagina,” she now called him “brutal and violent.” “He’s a dangerous man,” he said.

As Carol’s testimony unfolded, it became clear that she believed she had received double punishment.

If Carol hid her private persona behind the public face of an invincible old lady and dealt with her suffering privately, her second trauma was enacted under the harshest spotlight and another. It has created a devastation of sorts.

she Listed Her rape accusation in 2019 gave a boost to the #MeToo movement. Carroll had expected Trump to say the talks were consensual. and “implementing a political agenda.”

Carroll said many people chose to believe Trump over her.

“It knocked me down and I lost my reputation, so it made me low. No one looked at me the same way. I was gone. Even those who knew me looked at me with pity.” People who looked at me and didn’t have an opinion thought I was a liar and hated me,” she said.

Carroll was fired from Elle magazine after 26 years “because I criticized Donald Trump.”

“The power of hate over me was amazing,” she said.

Carol was very frightened and bought bullets for her gun.

When the attacks subsided, Carroll set out to rebuild his professional life and reputation. She moved her advice column online to her publisher Substack and has gained thousands of subscribers. It wasn’t quite like the millions of readers she had with Elle, but it was a start.

Then, last October, Carroll announced that she would sue Trump as soon as a New York state law allowing victims of sexual assault to file civil lawsuits after the statute of limitations expired.

Trump launched another attack. The former president called her allegations “complete fraud.”

“She completely fabricated the story that I met her at the door of this crowded New York City department store and swooned her within minutes. It’s a hoax and a lie,” Trump wrote. On his site, Truth Social.

“And I shouldn’t say it, but I do. This woman is not my type!”

Carol said she knew what that meant.

Carroll said she was “stunned” by Trump’s post, which probably shouldn’t have been surprising given his track record and her previous experience.

“That was when I was able to get Substack up and running and get my career back,” she testified. “I really felt like I was picking up the pace a bit. And boom, he knocks me down again.

Leading the indictment to discredit Carroll’s testimony in court is Joseph Tacopina, who is also Trump’s attorney in the New York criminal case over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Tacopina wore a tight-fitting suit, commenting that Carole seemed to have done well, but overturned abuse allegations against Michael Jackson and rapper Meek Mill’s drug and gun possession convictions. , known for handling difficult cases, including representing Joran van der Sloot. She said she was the prime suspect in the murder of an American woman in Aruba, later convicted of another murder in Peru.

But Tacopina struggled to get even a little bit of Carol’s explanation. He probably felt like his questioning style was drawn from another era. The lawyer asked Carol why she didn’t scream, why she didn’t go to the police, and why she kept her purse all the while.

Carol was annoyed.

“You can’t blame me for not screaming,” she retorted. “One of the reasons women don’t come forward is because people always ask why she didn’t scream.”

Tacopina continued to raise issues. He said Carol gave various explanations as to why she didn’t scream, as if her failure to pinpoint one reason was evidence of dishonesty.

Carol lost patience.

“I tell you, he raped me whether I screamed or not,” she said. “If I was going to lie, I would have screamed, but I didn’t scream. I didn’t scream.”

Tacopina asked why he didn’t call the police as many times as the judge told him to stop. Carroll said it was “not strange” for women not to report sexual assault.

“A lot of women don’t go to the police. I can see why,” she said.

Then there were the four-inch heels.

Tacopina, skeptical that Carroll may have been assaulted, finally used her knee to push Trump away while staggering over her high heels.

“I can dance backwards in four-inch heels,” Carol snorted.

After surviving Trump’s abusive reaction to her initial accusations and subsequent lawsuit, the former president posted a message after the first day calling Carroll’s accusations a “hoaxed fraud” and a “witch hunt” before the trial. brought a new wave of hostility. .

Judge Louis Kaplan warned that Trump may have crossed the line and tampered with jurors, but the message had already re-energized the former president’s supporters.

Carroll said in court that he had seen social media.

“I thought I’d take a peek at Twitter and there it was: an onslaught of ‘liars,’ ‘sluts,'” she said.

Carol will return to the witness stand on Monday to answer more of Tacopina’s questions.

But it will be up to the jury to balance the possibilities and decide whether the most controversial American president of our time is also a rapist.