More on Carroll’s testimony last week:
Jurors in the New York rape trial heard this week of how Trump’s alleged attack led to pain behind the public self
www.theguardian.com
Carroll was frank about her desire for the company of men – “Oh, I like ’em” she told the jury at one point, to laughter – even if she wrote a book documenting how some, including Trump, mistreated her, and satirically proposing that all males should be shipped to Montana for retraining.
She was not ashamed to admit she was “charmed” by Trump, and was flirting as they browsed through Bergdorf Goodman together on the day he allegedly attacked her, supposedly in search of a gift for a female friend of his. But after she gave a detailed account of Trump’s alleged assault, in which she described him as “rummaging around in my vagina”, she said she now considers him a “brutal, dangerous man”.
She
went public with her accusation of rape in 2019, three years into Trump’s presidency, encourage by the #MeToo movement. Carroll had expected Trump to say the encounter was consensual. Instead, he claimed to have no idea who she was, and accused her of making up “false stories of assault to try to get publicity” and to “carry out a political agenda”.
Carroll said a lot of people chose to believe Trump over her.
“It hit me and it laid me low because I lost my reputation. Nobody looked at me the same. It was gone. Even people who knew me looked at me with pity in their eyes, and the people who had no opinion now thought I was a liar and hated me,” she said.
Carroll was fired by Elle magazine after 26 years “because I accused Donald Trump”.
“The force of hatred coming at me was staggering,” she said. Carroll was so frightened she bought bullets for her gun.
When the attacks died down, Carroll set about rebuilding her professional life and her reputation. She moved her advice column to the online publisher Substack and picked up a few thousand subscribers. It was nothing like the millions of readers she had at Elle, but it was a start.
Then, in October last year, Carroll announced she would sue Trump as soon as a New York state law kicked in permitting victims of sexual assault to pursue civil cases after the statute of limitations has expired.
Trump launched another attack. The former president called her allegations “a complete con job”.
“She completely made up a story that I met her at the doors of this crowded New York City department store and, within minutes, ‘swooned’ her. It is a Hoax and a lie,” Trump wrote
on his site, Truth Social. “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!”
Carroll said she knew what that meant: “It means I’m too ugly to attack, to rape.”
Carroll said she was “stunned” by Trump’s post, although perhaps she should not have been surprised, given his track record and her previous experience.
“Just when I had managed to get my Substack up and running, and get my career back,” she testified. “I really felt I was gaining back a bit of ground. And then, boom, he knocks me back down again.”