Donald Trump denied raping writer E. Jean Carroll in a civil trial without testifying in person. Trump’s legal team told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan that they would not be calling any witnesses. The trial is in its sixth day and is expected to extend into next week. Carroll’s civil lawsuit for battery and defamation alleges Trump raped her in the mid-1990s and then tarred her reputation by claiming in an October 2022 post on his Truth Social platform that the former Elle magazine advice columnist’s case was a “Hoax and a lie.”
During three days of testimony and pointed cross-examination, Carroll said that Trump slammed her against the wall in either 1995 or 1996, put his fingers into her vagina and then inserted his penis. Trump accused Carroll of making up the story to drive sales of a 2019 memoir in which she made her claims public.
The trial has also featured testimony from two women who say Trump sexually assaulted them decades ago. Former People magazine reporter Natasha Stoynoff told jurors on Wednesday that Trump cornered her at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida in 2005 and forcibly kissed her for a “few minutes” until a butler interrupted the alleged assault. Another woman, Jessica Leeds, testified on Tuesday that Trump kissed her, groped her and put his hand up her skirt on a flight in 1979.
