Trump attorney Joe Tacopina pressed E. Jean Carroll on parts of
an article she wrote in
the Atlantic in August 2020.
The article, Tacopina suggests, can be viewed as Carroll trying to influence another witness’s own story against Trump by planting details. That other witness, writer Natasha Stoynoff,
wrote in October 2016 that Trump attacked her while she was at Mar-a-Lago to work on a fawning piece in People magazine about Trump’s marriage to his third wife, Melania.
Stoynoff is expected to testify at this trial as one of Carroll’s supporting witnesses, which is permitted to try to demonstrate a pattern of sexual misconduct by the ex-president.
The jury just heard the CNN clip of E. Jean Carroll saying “most people think of rape as sexy,” which was mentioned in earlier testimony.
Carroll qualified her CNN comments, which were construed by Donald Trump to mean that she enjoys rape. “I think most people think of rape as being sexy because in our culture we are saturated with entertainment shows which continually show rapes to gather an audience,” she said.
She said “Game of Thrones” depicted nine rapes and over 50 attempted rapes. It was not clear where she got her numbers.
“It is used because it excites people and draws an audience. Hence, I said I think most people think of rape as being sexy,” Carroll said, adding that “rape is the most horrible, violent act that can be done against a woman or man.”
E. Jean Carroll makes $70,000 a year with her Substack newsletter, she testified. In a podcast interview played for jurors, Carroll said she got “revenge” on Elle magazine, her former employer, by having a successful Substack. “I’m now making more money,” she said in the clip. Her contract with Elle was for $5,000 a month, according to her earlier testimony.
In this civil case, E. Jean Carroll is alleging that she experienced broad reputational harm from Donald Trump’s words and actions. Carroll’s claim does not hinge on loss of income.
Jurors were shown communications depicting E. Jean Carroll planning social events with pals including fellow Trump critic Mary L. Trump, the ex-president’s estranged niece, around the time of one of her court hearings.
Carroll countered Trump attorney Joe Tacopina’s suggestion that the plans amounted to celebrating.
“Yes, we are gathering because we were very hopeful,” Carroll testified. “These are my friends. They’re supporting me, and I am happy to reread these emails I had forgotten.”
Those plans included what Tacopina called a “watch party” with friends.
Tacopina also referenced a message with comedian Kathy Griffin, who has been vocally supportive of Carroll on Twitter and is also a harsh Trump critic. The former “My Life on the D-List” reality star came under fire in 2017 for posing in a photo shoot with a fake severed Trump head.
As Trump attorney Joe Tacopina continues to try to cast doubt on E. Jean Carroll’s claims that she suffered harm from her alleged encounter with Donald Trump, Tacopina notes that she told Leslie Lebowitz, an expert witness for Carroll’s side, that she was concerned about being harmed after her story came out in 2019.
Tacopina then introduced a text exchange between Carroll and the daughter of her friend Carol Martin. In it, Carroll wrote: “Do not worry. I have been walking these great New York streets the last six days ALONE and at night, and ALL DAY LONG and receive nothing but thanks! and thumbs up! it is the opposite of ‘concern’!”
Carroll testified Monday that the message was about feeling supported in the streets of New York. “I was worried about where I live up in Orange County,” Carroll said.
As Trump attorney Joe Tacopina continues to cross-examine E. Jean Carroll, he has focused on trying to undermine her credibility. He has asked her previously why she did not file a police report about the alleged assault, and noted that she returned numerous times to the upscale department store where the alleged assault took place.
Tacopina’s latest effort to undermine her credibility includes a reference to an episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” from 2012, more than a decade after Carroll said the assault took place but years before she publicly disclosed it in her book, published in 2019.
The episode includes a storyline in which characters discuss a rape role-play scenario that takes place in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room — raising a not-so-subtle question for jurors about whether Carroll could have concocted her account based on one that appeared on the long-running show.
Tacopina showed an email from a woman who wrote to Carroll in June 2019 alerting her to the episode’s existence.
“I haven’t seen it, but it happens all the time with ‘Law and Order’ stories,” Carroll wrote in an email reply. “Also, there are 200 scripted shows a year on TV, this kind of thing is bound to show up. Indeed, I’m surprised this sort of plot is not seen more often.”
Carroll described herself as a fan of “Law & Order” but not the “Special Victims Unit” spinoff, which focuses exclusively on sex crimes. “It’s too violent,” she said.
Trump attorney Joe Tacopina is now discussing E. Jean Carroll’s relationship with Elle magazine, for which she wrote for nearly three decades.
Tacopina is trying to introducing other theories, besides the alleged actions of his client, for why Carroll’s relationship with the magazine deteriorated after she accused Trump in 2019 of raping her decades earlier.
Carroll acknowledged under questioning that when celebrity editor Nina Garcia took over at Elle in 2017, Carroll’s pay was cut in half, which she said was part of broader shifts in print publishing. That, along with the magazine “burying” Carroll’s column in print and online, prompted Carroll to review her contract and entertain the possibility of taking her column elsewhere.
Then, in 2019, Carroll publicly accused Trump of raping her. Carroll contends that Trump’s allegedly defamatory comments after that accusation precipitated her firing from Elle.
Trump, who was president of the United States at the time, called her a liar, and Carroll said that was “a huge hit” to her reputation.
“My trustworthiness was exploded. It just crumbled the whole foundation on which the column had rested for … years,” Carroll said.
Carroll argued that it is consequential for her work as an advice columnist to be someone who could be relied on to tell the truth. Later, under questioning, Carroll admitted that Garcia, Elle’s celebrity editor, “loathed” Carroll for publishing her book excerpt in a rival publication.
“Nina got very angry at me for publishing the excerpt in New York Magazine,” Carroll said.
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