Trump’s lawyer suggests rape accuser made up alleged attack to sell book

A lawyer for Donald Trump pressed the former president’s rape accuser in the trial of her lawsuit against him, calling the details of her claims “odd” and suggesting she had made up the attack to sell a book.

“Using your own words, the facts you allege in the story you’ve told here are odd,” Joe Tacopina said as he started his cross-examination of E Jean Carroll in Manhattan federal court on Thursday, asking if she agreed.

“Yes, certain parts of the story are difficult to conceive of,” said Carroll (79). But, she added, “those are the facts.”

Mr Trump (76), has argued that Ms Carroll’s allegation that he raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in the 1990s was impossible to believe given her age and because she was not his “type.” He also argues there would have been witnesses and that she would have screamed, or reported him to the police afterward.

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Ms Carroll, a journalist and former Elle magazine advice columnist, says the sixth-floor lingerie department where she alleges the attack occurred was unstaffed and all but deserted on the midweek evening when they were there, and that she didn’t report the incident because she was ashamed and because she feared Trump would try to destroy her if she spoke up.

Mr Tacopina, who began his cross-examination by displaying the cover of Ms Carroll’s book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, asked why she didn’t go public before Mr Trump was elected in 2016. He suggested she timed her allegation with the publication of the 2019 book.

Ms Carroll said she waited because her mother was elderly and she didn’t want to distress her. Mr Tacopina then asked why she didn’t immediately go public after her mother died.

“I was in deep, painful mourning,” Ms Carroll said.

“It had nothing to do with the fact that the book wasn’t ready yet?” he asked.

“I hadn’t conceived writing a book at that point,” she said.

[ In searing detail, Trump’s rape accuser tells her story ]

“You thought that adding to your book the story about being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump in a dressing room in the department store would be a major element of your book, right?” Mr Tacopina asked Ms Carroll.

“I thought people would be interested. It turned out I was wrong,” she said, referring to the book’s poor sales.

Ms Carroll testified that the 2017 New York Times exposé on the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s assaults on women inspired her to add Mr Trump’s alleged attack to the book she was already writing about her relationship with men. She agreed with Mr Tacopina that her book pitch, which mentioned only Mr Trump, helped her secure a $70,000 advance from the publisher but said it wasn’t all about the money.

“It caused me to realise that staying silent does not work,” she told the jury.

The jury of six men and three women will decide whether Mr Trump is liable for sexually assaulting Ms Carroll and then defaming her as recently as last year by claiming on social media that she fabricated the attack to sell the book. If they find him liable, the jurors will then decide how much he must pay Ms Carroll, depending on the harm they find she suffered.