Trump jurors see new video of ex-president defending lewd “Grab ’em” remarks
Jurors in Donald Trump’s civil rape trial on Thursday saw a video deposition in which the former U.S. president defended private comments he made in 2005 about grabbing women sexually without asking.
Trump was asked by a lawyer for writer E. Jean Carroll, his accuser, about the 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape, where he said on a hot microphone that “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything… Grab ’em by the pussy.”
The “Access Hollywood” tape was first made public in October 2016, a month before Trump was elected U.S. president.
“Historically, that’s true, with stars… if you look over the last million years,” Trump said in the video deposition taken last October and shown to the jury on Thursday, the seventh day of the rape trial in Manhattan federal court.
The trial is expected to continue into next week after a day off on Friday.
Carroll, 79, has testified that Trump, 76, raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and then tarred her reputation and career by lying about it online.
She is seeking unspecified damages.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican residential nomination, has said he could not have raped Carroll, because “she’s not my type” and has called the case politically motivated.
He will not testify at the trial and has not been in the Manhattan courtroom so far, but on Thursday he told reporters during a trip to Ireland that he would probably attend.
In an excerpt on Thursday from the October video deposition by Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Trump also mistook Carroll for an ex-wife in a black-and-white photograph that shows him speaking to people at an event.
“It’s Marla,” he said, referring to his second wife Marla Maples.
When Kaplan asked him if he was saying the picture depicted Maples, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba said, “No, that’s Carroll.”
Carroll’s lawyers have argued that the episode, made public in January, undermines Trump’s argument that Carroll was not his type.
In the deposition, taken last October at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump reiterated his denials of having raped Carroll, whom he called “mentally sick.”
“You know it’s not true too,” Trump said, addressing Kaplan. “You’re a political operative also. You’re a disgrace.”
Earlier on Thursday, during a visit to a resort he owns in southwestern Ireland, Trump dismissed what he called untrue allegations “against a rich guy.”
“I have to go back for a woman that made a false accusation about me, and I have a judge who is extremely hostile,” Trump told reporters while playing golf at the Doonbeg resort.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan, who is not related to Carroll’s lawyer, warned last week that Trump could face more legal problems if he kept discussing the case. He did not address Trump’s latest comments before trial resumed on Thursday.
The trial is expected to extend into next week.
Carroll, a former advice columnist at Elle magazine, said during three days of testimony and cross-examination that Trump slammed her against the wall in either 1995 or 1996, put his fingers into her vagina and then inserted his penis.
Two of Carroll’s longtime friends have testified that Carroll told them about the attack shortly after it occurred and said they believed her.
Two other women have also testified in support of Carroll, saying Trump sexually assaulted them in separate alleged incidents decades ago.
Trump has denied those claims as well. He has accused Carroll of making up the story to drive sales of a 2019 memoir in which she made her claims public.