It’s an interesting one. In 1996, Elizabeth Jean Carroll was a columnist for Elle magazine. She said she was shopping at Bergdorf-Goodman, a high-end department store in New York City, where she encountered Donald Trump. Trump apparently struck up a polite conversation with her and asked for her advice while he was shopping for a woman he knew.
They went to the lingerie section — its own floor — where Trump, according to Carroll, asked her to try a piece on. He then, allegedly, followed her into the dressing room, where he allegedly pinned her up against a wall and sexually assaulted her.
If that actually occurred, nothing of it was mentioned publicly until 2019, when Carroll, inspired by the “MeToo” movement, felt the need to share her story.
Now, Trump is being sued in federal court by Carroll for battery as well as defamation due to Trump calling the whole thing a hoax. Trump maintains complete innocence.
Nine witnesses were called by Carroll’s camp to corroborate. Trump’s team didn’t call any.
Carroll, as the starting witness, said she told two friends of the incident. The two friends testified in her favor, which is key for Carroll’s victory. The case is impossible to prove. All evidence is gone. It’s completely hearsay.
But this isn’t a criminal trial. So therefore hearsay is much easier to prove in a civil lawsuit. There’s no guilty or not guilty, really. So there could still be a reasonable doubt, but the jury may find her sympathetic enough to award her damages.
Carol Martin, a fellow journalist, was one of the friends Carroll came to. Martin said she advised Carroll to do nothing, considering the Trump team would destroy her with their legal prowess.
The Trump defense’s main point is that Carroll completely made it up. But these testimonies say that she did not, and the witnesses confirmed that they were contacted shortly after the date in question.
However, it’s entirely possible that her two friends could just be making the whole thing up.
Cheryl Beall was another witness. She worked at the department store. She said the sixth floor, where the lingerie was at the time, was most likely left unattended and that dressing rooms were left unlocked.
Obviously, it’s not a witness that’s saying she could confirm the story in any way, giving Trump’s defense more strength. But her statements at least confirm that the incident is entirely possible. That since there was no one on the sixth floor, it’s likely no one else witnessed the alleged incident since no one else was there.
Two witnesses spoke of their own assault incidences involving Trump. Those claims were widely covered in the press a handful of years ago. They spoke of his character, but it didn’t really indicate guilt in this specific incident one way or another.
A psychologist who examined Carroll for the trial added some heft to her claims. She said, in her evaluation, that she found “a diminishment in her ability to feel positive about herself” and “avoidant behaviors which have led to her inability to maintain a romantic life,” when it came to Carroll. The psychologist also said Carroll had been unable to have sex or be in a romantic relationship since the alleged rape.
However, that’s just the viewpoint of one psychologist. And it’s entirely possible that Carroll experienced a different traumatic incident from someone else that would ignite her malaise.
So, there isn’t any concrete evidence that Trump raped Carroll. Just some messages of support and confirmation of Trump’s alleged poor character.
But the reputational damage is something entirely different. Trump took it too far by going on the attack against Carroll. One witness, a journalism professor at Northwestern, said the damages caused by Trump going on the attack caused Carroll to lose out on a little less than 3 million dollars.
Trump sat in for a video deposition, but didn’t do much to help or incriminate himself. Trump said Carroll was not his type, but then in a photo, Trump mistook Carroll for his ex-wife, Marla Maples.
The “not my type” defense is somewhat of a weak one.
Still, Carroll has nothing to go on.
The verdict? Hard to say. Best guess is it was a more minor incident that was inflated, but something happened that day. It’s doubtful this case will hurt Trump in any way. It’s just too impossible to prove, and none of the witnesses added any iron clad evidence to the case.
But we all know about the Access Hollywood tapes and his less-than-perfect behavior towards women.
Should the guy pay up? Why not? If I were him I’d settle immediately and put the whole thing behind him. The guy is not squeaky clean, and there’s enough dirt on him where fighting for total innocence would be unwise.
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