During the 2016 campaigns, Trump denied every claim by a woman who came forward to report sexual harassment and sexual assault against him, even insinuating that the women were not attractive enough for him to assault. Now, another accuser has come forward, and Trump is publicly threatening her in an attempt to keep her silent.
In next week's cover story, E. Jean Carroll shares for the first time her violent encounter with Donald Trump. The coatdress she was wearing that day has hung in her closet ever since; she wore it again for the first time for her portrait with New York https://t.co/yPaLsRoVcH pic.twitter.com/Tx2HAzt1mi
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) June 21, 2019
According to a press pool report, Trump issued a statement saying he has never met celebrity journalist and author E. Jean Carroll and has no idea who she is. He then tried to insist that she’s being paid to accuse him of rape, or maybe she’s only doing it for book sales, and made threats that Carroll and Democrats, who may be “working with” her, would “pay dearly” for her accusations.
‘Ms. Carroll & New York Magazine: No pictures? No surveillance? No video? No reports? No sales attendants around?? I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident, because it never happened.
‘False accusations diminish the severity of real assault. All should condemn false accusations and any actual assault in the strongest possible terms. If anyone has information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms. Carroll or New York Magazine, please notify us as soon as possible. The world should know what’s really going on. It is a disgrace and people should pay dearly for such false accusations.’
Trump says in his statement on Carroll's allegations, "I've never met this person in my life." Her article features a photo of them beside each other. pic.twitter.com/nlnvtyED0M
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) June 21, 2019
Trump’s insistence that he has never met Carroll was easily disproven by a photo that accompanied her story, which will appear in an upcoming issue of New York Magazine, and pointing out that there are no photos or videos is incredibly disingenuous. Not only is it illegal to install cameras in dressing rooms, it’s unlikely that any surveillance video would exist three decades after the alleged assault.
Carroll says the response from the White House about the upcoming story was disturbing, warning her that Trump’s followers would only like him more because of it.
‘The man I will be talking about denies it, as he has denied accusations of sexual misconduct made by at least 15 credible women, namely, Jessica Leeds, Kristin Anderson, Jill Harth, Cathy Heller, Temple Taggart McDowell, Karena Virginia, Melinda McGillivray, Rachel Crooks, Natasha Stoynoff, Jessica Drake, Ninni Laaksonen, Summer Zervos, Juliet Huddy, Alva Johnson, and Cassandra Searles. (Here’s what the White House said: “This is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad.”) And (b) I run the risk of making him more popular by revealing what he did.’
As a warning, some parts of Carroll’s story are very graphic and may be triggering to some survivors.
Wow. E. Jean Carroll, an author I've long admired, writes of Donald Trump assaulting her in the mid-90s: "He lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips." And it gets worse…https://t.co/ViNlkf03t1 pic.twitter.com/1546pDVYDv
— Elise Jordan (@Elise_Jordan) June 21, 2019
Caroll addressed the question that’s sure to be raised about why she had not come forward before now ahead of it being asked. All of Trump’s accusers, including the nameless accuser who says Trump raped her as a child, have been badgered, threatened, and even forced from their homes. In the face of those consequences, Carroll was unwilling previously to put herself and her family at that kind of risk.
‘Receiving death threats, being driven from my home, being dismissed, being dragged through the mud, and joining the 15 women who’ve come forward with credible stories about how the man grabbed, badgered, belittled, mauled, molested, and assaulted them, only to see the man turn it around, deny, threaten, and attack them, never sounded like much fun.’
Donald Trump rejected an allegation by journalist E. Jean Carroll that he sexually assaulted her in the 1990s.
He said he never met her and accused her of making up the allegations to sell books https://t.co/dhkVte0hM7
— POLITICO (@politico) June 21, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Matt Johnson under a Creative Commons license
