“I know you understand what I’m dealing with,” Tacopina reportedly told Judge Kaplan in explaining Trump’s comments. Trump nevertheless continued to go after Carroll, telling reporters last week that she’s a “disgrace” and that she shouldn’t have been allowed to sue him, among other jabs. Judge Kaplan warned Trump’s attorneys later that day that their client may be “tampering with a new source of potential liability” by attacking Carroll. “Her lawyer is a political operative, financed by a big political donor that they said didn’t exist, only to get caught lying about that.”

Bergdorf Goodman, is a made up SCAM,” the former president wrote in the opening days of the trial. Trump has instead been presenting his case to the court of public opinion, railing against Carroll on Truth Social and to the press. Trump Relentlessly Mocks DeSantis After Bungled Campaign Launch Natasha Stoynoff testified that Trump assaulted her at Mar-a-Lago in 2005, and Jessica Leeds testified that Trump groped her on a plane in 1979. “One of the reasons they don’t come forward is because they’re always asked, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ I’m telling you, he raped me whether I screamed or not.”Ĭarroll’s team also called one of the author’s friends, who testified that she called her immediately after the alleged assault, as well as two other woman who have accused Trump of sexual assault. “Women don’t come forward,” Carroll said. “As I’m sitting here today, I still feel it,” she told the court in the opening days of the trial.Ĭarroll sparred with Tacopina during cross examination a day later, pushing back when Tacopina referenced the “supposed” assault and taking him to task when he asked why she didn’t scream.

She filed a separate battery suit late last year under New York’s new Adult Survivors Act. Carroll first leveled the allegation in 2019, and then filed a defamation suit after Trump bashed her for it. The arguments closed a two-week trial that featured powerful testimony from Carroll, who recounted the “extremely painful” assault she says took place in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-Nineties. Carroll’s lawyers closed, in part, by playing video of Trump’s deposition, in which he both claims Carroll is not his “type” and mistakes Carroll for his second wife, Marla Maples.

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