The video, shown Thursday to jurors in the civil trial being held in New York, was made public Friday.
The video of a testimony by Donald Trump, shown Thursday to jurors in the civil trial in New York where the former American president is accused of rape by an author, was made public on Friday and the media began to broadcast it.
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 fitting 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.
“It’s the most ridiculous story”
The Republican billionaire did not appear at the trial which began last week, and in his absence, extracts from the video, recorded in the proceedings in October 2022, were broadcast during the proceedings.
“It’s the most ridiculous, the most disgusting story. It’s an invention from scratch,” he says of the accusations, calling E. Jean Caroll “liar” and “sick”.
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 meeting, he confuses the complainant with his ex-wife Marla. “It’s very vague,” he adds when 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 boasting of kissing and touching the women he likes as he pleases, and adding: “when you you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Catch 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 E’s lawyer. 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.
