Advice columnist E. Jean Carroll details alleged rape by Trump in 1990s
A famous advice columnist has come forward to allege that President Donald Trump attacked her in the 1990s in a dressing room. The alleged actions ― as described by columnist E. Jean Carroll in graphic detail ― would clearly constitute rape.
This is the story behind E. Jean Carroll's account of her alleged encounter with Donald Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room more than two decades ago https://t.co/8GV1bw9cXA
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) June 21, 2019
Carroll is the 16th woman to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct. In an excerpt of her upcoming book, “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,” published Friday by New York Magazine, she described her encounter with the real estate mogul.
Carroll says that in the mid-1990s, she was in Bergdorf Goodman when she ran into Trump. Trump, recognizing her as a famous advice columnist, asked for her help to buy lingerie for an unnamed woman. Carroll, then 52, obliged and followed Trump to the lingerie department. Once there, the exchange turned violent, she writes:
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.
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.
The now 75-year-old goes on to say it was a “colossal struggle” before she finally was able to “push him out and off,” and escape the department store.
The White House’s statement to New York Magazine on the alleged assault is that Carroll’s story “is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad.”
Carroll told two friends about the attack. She wrote that she didn’t come forward sooner because “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.”
Carroll and the White House did not respond to additional requests for comment.
You can read the entire excerpt here.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
RELATED: High-profile figures accused of sexual assault
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
