‘THIS IS NOT AMERICA’: Four MURKY problems with E. Jean Carroll’s legal attacks on Trump

by Summer Lane

Analysis by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy

President Donald Trump has long derided the seemingly never-ending E. Jean Carroll case in New York, and on Friday, he attended closing arguments in a defamation trial on the heels of last year’s courtroom drama brought by the same accuser.

Just a few hours later, a jury decided that he would have to pay Carroll a stunning $83.3 million in damages, according to CBS News.

The president has called the trial a “witch hunt,” a “SCAM,” and has strongly refuted allegations that he ever touched Carroll or even knew her. He also noted on Friday that the verdict was “ridiculous” and added that he would be “‘appealing this whole Biden Directed Witch Hunt focused on me and the Republican Party.”

“THIS IS NOT AMERICA,” he wrote.

On Thursday night, he released a video railing against the ongoing trial and noting, “I don’t even know who this woman is – I have no idea who she is, or where she came from.”

Carroll accused Trump of allegedly accosting her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in New York in 1990s, around 30 years ago. In 2019, she wrote an extensive editorial detailing her alleged experience with Trump as part of a “New York” cover story entitled “My List of Hideous Men.”

President Trump has remained resolute that the case is “PURE FICTION,” especially as this second trial kicked off between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Here are the top four murky details of the E. Jean Carroll case, which cast a questionable shadow over the former Elle columnist’s conflictingly colorful tales.

1: The timeline

It seems odd that E. Jean Carroll would wait decades to levy her accusations against President Trump. Her 2019 column for “New York” and the “Hideous Men” feature was published right in the middle of the president’s first term in the White House. She made an extensive variety of claims regarding her alleged interaction with Trump, which he has repeatedly said never happened.

The question remains: why wait so long to bring such accusations? Why not bring them before he was president? In the end, the 2023 trial verdict between Carroll and Trump ultimately found that there was no evidence of rape, although, oddly, the court found him liable of “sexual abuse” and “defamation,” per RSBN. Trump appealed that decision.

It is also important to note that this newest defamation trial began the day after the president won a decisive victory in the Iowa caucuses. He spent tremendous time flying back and forth between campaign events in New Hampshire and trial dates in New York amidst the two important battleground primary contests. Trump pointedly described the trial as “election interference” last week.

2: The dress and the date

Carroll originally stated that she was wearing a Donna Karan jacket dress when Donald Trump allegedly attacked her in the 1990s. She wrote in her 2019 editorial, “The Donna Karan coatdress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening.”

However, Carroll has not been clear on the dates of the alleged attack. “At first she said she thought it was 1994 or 1995, but she said her friend Lisa Birnbach published an article about Trump for New York magazine in February 1996,” ABC News reported in 2023.

According to The Gateway Pundit, her infamous Donna Karan coatdress was not even reportedly sold until 1995 or 1996.

The outlet further cited Trump Attorney Boris Epshteyn, who told reporters, “She said, this is the dress I wore in 1994. They went back, they checked. The dress wasn’t even made in 1994. And that’s why the date’s moved around. This is the 80s. Is it the 90s? Is it the 2000s? President Trump has consistently stated that he was falsely accused and he has the right to defend himself.”

Trump himself wrote on Truth Social on Wednesday, “The truth is that she doesn’t know the day, month, season, year, or decade – because it did not happen. End this Witch Hunt now!”

3: The money

Another shadowy detail about the E. Jean Carroll saga is the money poured into her legal quest against Trump. According to The New York Times, Carroll’s case in 2023 was, in part, funded by LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire donor Reid Hoffman. Hoffman has also donated to Nikki Haley’s GOP 2024 presidential campaign.

Carroll has claimed that Trump “shattered her reputation” but has also admitted in court that she is making more than $100,000 on her substack blog alone, as reported by RSBN. It appears that constantly attacking President Donald Trump has increased Carroll’s personal wealth by leaps and bounds.

4. E. Jean Carroll says ‘rape is sexy,’ among other things

In an interview on CNN with Anderson Cooper in 2019, Carroll stated that “rape is sexy” and delivered what seemed to be an odd slate of comments regarding her allegations against then-sitting President Donald Trump. Cooper awkwardly cut to a commercial following her rape comment.

Watch the exchange here:

President Trump noted that in the defamation trial this week, “Judge Kaplan refuses to allow the Anderson Cooper Interview on CNN of E. Jean Carroll wherein Carroll says, ‘Rape is sexy,’ and numerous other things that totally exonerate me.”

He called the trial “one-sided” and scorched the judge as “an extremely abusive individual, the likes of which few have seen before!”

Perhaps most disturbingly of all is a string of alleged comments and statements that Carroll reportedly posted on Facebook before Trump was president. Multiple outlets have disseminated the posts online, and the president has frequently shared these screenshots on his Truth Social account.

Some of the most bizarre, alleged statements from Carroll included:  

  • “Lust, Fame, Jealousy, Violently Making out….Another week begins tomorrow!”
  • “The best sex toy is your brain.”
  • “Any ideas on how to dominate a man?”
  • “There is no such thing as a slut. Only sexual geniuses.”
  • “Everything interesting on Twitter is about sex.”
  • “Sex Tip I Learned From My Dog: When in heat, chase the male until he collapses with exhaustion…then jump him!”

The sex-centered statements, if authentic, are certainly bizarre, especially when coupled with Carroll’s claim in 2019 that she “never had sex again” after the alleged encounter she had with Trump.

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