Quietly in the background a civil rape trial is playing out in Federal Court in New York….
Donald Trump hasn’t showed up at the trial yet….
No settlement talks either…..
E. Jean Carroll dramatically rebuffed a lawyer for Donald Trump who questioned her behavior and memory as he cross-examined her on Thursday about her allegation that the former president raped her in the 1990s.
“Here’s the thing: I was too much in a panic to scream,” Carroll said when Trump’s lawyer, Joe Tacopina, challenged her assertion that she didn’t yell for help during the alleged assault in a department store dressing room.
“I’m telling you: He raped me whether I screamed or not,” Carroll said, raising her voice.
Carroll, a magazine writer, testified for a second day in her civil lawsuit against the former president. She is suing him for battery and defamation. He has said the alleged incident “never happened.”
The questioning got off to a terse start as Tacopina wished Carroll “good morning” twice before she would reply to him. “There ya go,” he said when she finally responded.
Carroll has said that she believes the alleged attack at Bergdorf Goodman occurred in the evening on a day between the fall of 1995 and the spring of 1996, and under questioning from her own lawyer on Wednesday, she added that she believes it took place on a Thursday. A former Bergdorf employee testified that Thursdays were the only nights of the week the luxury department store stayed open late….
sketch….In this courtroom sketch, Judge Lewis Kaplan (left) presides, as E. Jean Carroll (right) is cross-examined by Donald Trump’s defense attorney Joe Tacopina in Federal Court in New York on Thursday. Tacopina went on the attack against Carroll’s claims that she was raped by Trump in the 1990s to try to discredit the longtime advice columnist. | Elizabeth Williams/AP Photo