An advice columnist is accusing President Trump of sexually assaulting her in the 1990s via a cover story for New York magazine.
E. Jean Carroll, who has written a column for Elle magazine since 1993, claims Mr. Trump raped her while he was a businessman in New York City.
Ms. Carroll writes they began chatting after running into each other at the New York designer store Bergdorf Goodman, and he followed her into a dressing room.
“The moment the dressing-room door is closed, he lunges at me, pushes me against the wall, hitting my head quite badly, and puts his mouth against my lips. I am so shocked I shove him back and start laughing again. He seizes both my arms and pushes me up against the wall a second time, and, as I become aware of how large he is, he holds me against the wall with his shoulder and jams his hand under my coat dress and pulls down my tights,” she writes.
“I am astonished by what I’m about to write: I keep laughing. The next moment, still wearing correct business attire, shirt, tie, suit jacket, overcoat, he opens the overcoat, unzips his pants, and, forcing his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me. It turns into a colossal struggle,” Ms. Carroll says.
“I am wearing a pair of sturdy black patent-leather four-inch Barneys high heels, which puts my height around six-one, and I try to stomp his foot. I try to push him off with my one free hand — for some reason, I keep holding my purse with the other — and I finally get a knee up high enough to push him out and off and I turn, open the door, and run out of the dressing room,” she says.
In a lengthy White House statement, Mr. Trump said he never met Ms. Carroll and that she is peddling “fiction.”
“Shame on those who make up false stories of assault to try to get publicity for themselves, or sell a book, or carry out a political agenda,” he said, evoking an accuser of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh who walked back claims she made during his confirmation process.
“It’s just as bad for people to believe it, particularly when there is zero evidence,” the president said. “No pictures? No surveillance? No video? No reports? No sales attendants around?”
He claimed New York Magazine was “dying” and needed to prop itself up.
“False accusations diminish the severity of real assault. All should condemn false accusations and any actual assault in the strongest possible terms,” he added. “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.”
Ms. Carroll, who says she told close friends about the incident shortly after it transpired, said she considered herself “a coward” for not coming forward publicly earlier, but explained she long feared reprisals for sharing her story.
“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,” she said.
The story is an excerpt from Ms. Carroll’s new book, “What Do We Need Men For?” where she also claims that former CBS CEO Les Moonves, who was ousted from the network over allegation of misconduct, also assaulted her after an interview.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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