Donald Trump has stated and performed a variety of deeply f–ked up stuff in his life, and whereas it will be tough to rank and categorize all of it, it’s fairly clear that his response to being {accused} of rape by the author E. Jean Carroll can be close to the very prime of the listing. In the event you’ve buried that comment, together with many of the issues that occurred between 2016 and early 2021, within the deepest recesses of your mind, that’s clearly comprehensible. As a reminder, although, when requested concerning the allegation Carroll had made, Trump instructed The Hill that she was “completely mendacity” and “not my sort.” In different phrases, Trump supposedly didn’t discover Carroll engaging sufficient to violently assault her. He stated this within the Oval Workplace, after which subsequently had his Justice Division argue he couldn’t be sued personally for defamation over it as a result of he was appearing in his official capability as president of america on the time.
Sadly for Trump, the justice system disagreed, and final October, he was lastly deposed by Carroll’s authorized crew. A transcript of that deposition was newly unsealed, and, along with a variety of utterly unsurprising moments—calling the allegations “a hoax,” mentions of the Russia investigation, and so forth.—one second caught out as extraordinarily shocking. Particularly, when he was proven a photograph of Carroll and thought it was his second spouse, Marla Maples.
Proven a black-and-white picture of himself, Carroll, his first spouse, Ivana, and Carroll’s partner on the time—which circulated after Trump claimed he’d by no means even met Carroll—the ex-president pointed to the author and stated, “It’s Marla,” referring to his second spouse.
“You’re saying Marla is on this picture?” Carroll’s lawyer requested.
“That’s Marla, yeah. That’s my spouse,” Trump responded, based on the transcript. Along with the lady in query very a lot not being Marla Maples, on the time of the picture, he was married to Ivana, and wouldn’t go on to wed Maples for a number of years.
Apparently wanting this bizarre, doubtlessly damning scene to not play out any additional, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba interjected, saying: “No, that’s Carroll.”
“Oh, I see,” Trump answered.
“The individual you simply pointed to was E. Jean Carroll,” Carroll’s lawyer instructed him.
After Trump’s lawyer repeated this to him, the ex-president responded: “That’s Carroll?”
Past the plain query—like, does the previous president and present presidential candidate have dementia?—as The Washington Submit notes, the incident could have “doubtlessly undermin[ed]” Trump’s oft-repeated protection that Carroll was and isn’t his “sort,” on condition that he cheated on hist first spouse with Maples and later married her.
Elsewhere within the deposition, Trump falsely claimed that Carroll had stated in a 2019 interview with Anderson Cooper that rape was attractive and that she loved being assaulted. (Within the interview, Carroll instructed the CNN host she most well-liked to not use the time period “rape” as a result of some individuals assume “rape is attractive.” She added: “I didn’t consider it as rape. I considered it as a violent incident. I considered it as a struggle. And I’ll inform you how silly…. I assumed I gained as a result of I bought out.”) He additionally known as Carroll a “nut job” and continued to insist that her allegations are a “hoax.”
There was additionally this change, which occurred after Carroll’s lawyer had famous {that a} ebook written by former White Home staffer Stephanie Grisham, which contained particulars about his response to Carroll, was printed by a “radical, left-leaning writer.”
By the way, Ivana Trump reportedly stated in sworn testimony, throughout her 1990 divorce deposition, that Trump had raped her the prior yr, after ripping out handfuls of her hair as a result of he was upset a few “scalp discount” surgical procedure he’d undergone to do away with a bald spot. She later claimed she had not {accused} him in a “literal or prison sense.”
