(New York) The video of a statement by Donald Trump, shown Thursday to jurors in the civil trial in New York where the former US president is accused of rape by a female author, was released on Friday and the media began to report it. broadcast.
For 48 minutes, we see Donald Trump, blue tie and white shirt under a dark jacket, defending himself, sometimes in a vehement tone, and answering questions from the plaintiff’s lawyer, the former columnist for Elle magazine, E John Carroll.
The ex-journalist, now 79, accused Donald Trump in a 2019 book of raping her in a dressing room in the lingerie department of a New York luxury department store, Bergdorf Goodman , in the mid-1990s. She then filed a complaint against him for defamation, then last November for rape in a civil action.
The Republican billionaire did not appear at the trial, which began last week, and in his absence, excerpts from the video, recorded in the proceedings in October 2022, were broadcast during the proceedings.
“This is the most ridiculous, disgusting story. It’s a complete invention,” he said of the charges, calling E. Jean Caroll a “liar” and a “sick person.”
He reiterates that he does not know the journalist and reaffirms that she is “not (his) type”. But, once the lawyer shows him a photo where he is in front of E. Jean Carroll at a party years before their alleged 1996 encounter, he confuses the complainant with his ex-wife Marla.
“It’s very vague,” he adds as his lawyer corrects him by whispering, “it’s (E. Jean) Carroll.”
The former president is also invited to react to his remarks in a video, which has become famous, where we hear him in 2005 bragging about kissing and touching the women he likes as he pleases, and adding: “when you you’re a star, they let you. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy.”
“It’s historically true for stars […] if you look at the last few million years, I think it’s true to a large extent, not always, but to a large extent whether we lament it or not,” he explains.
“And do you consider yourself a star?” “, asks him the lawyer of E. Jean Carroll, Roberta Kaplan. “I think you can say that, yes,” he replies.
Several journalists following the trial had asked the presiding judge on Thursday to make the video public, but the latter decided that it was up to the parties to do so.
