© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump reacts after arriving at Aberdeen Worldwide Airport in Aberdeen, Scotland, Britain Could 1, 2023. REUTERS/Russell Cheyne
By Luc Cohen, Jack Queen and Padraic Halpin
NEW YORK/DOONBEG, Eire (Reuters) -Jurors in Donald Trump’s civil rape trial on Thursday noticed a video deposition wherein the previous U.S. president defended personal feedback he made in 2005 about grabbing girls sexually with out asking.
Trump was requested by a lawyer for his accuser, the author E. Jean Carroll, in regards to the 2005 “Entry Hollywood” tape, the place he stated on a scorching microphone that “if you’re a star, they allow you to do it. You are able to do something… Seize ’em by the pussy.”
“Traditionally, that is true, with stars… in the event you look over the past million years,” Trump stated within the video deposition taken final October and proven to the jury on Thursday, the seventh day of the rape trial in Manhattan federal courtroom.
The “Entry Hollywood” tape was first made public in October 2016, a month earlier than Trump was elected U.S. president.
Carroll, 79, has testified that Trump, 76, raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman division retailer dressing room in Manhattan within the mid-Nineteen Nineties, after which tarred her fame and profession by mendacity about it on-line.
A social media and advertising professional employed by Carroll advised jurors on Thursday that the fee to restore the reputational harm of Trump’s statements may vary from $368,000 to $2.8 million.
Carroll is searching for unspecified damages. The trial is anticipated to run into subsequent week after a break day on Friday.
Trump, the front-runner for the 2024 Republican residential nomination, has stated he couldn’t have raped Carroll, as a result of “she’s not my kind” and has referred to as the case politically motivated.
He won’t testify on the trial and has not been within the Manhattan courtroom thus far, however on Thursday he advised reporters throughout a visit to Eire that he would in all probability attend.
‘IT’S MARLA,’ TRUMP MISTAKENLY SAYS OF ACCUSER’S PHOTO
In an excerpt on Thursday from the October video deposition by Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Trump additionally mistook Carroll for an ex-wife in a black-and-white {photograph} that exhibits him chatting with individuals at an occasion.
“It is Marla,” he stated, referring to his second spouse Marla Maples.
When Kaplan requested him if he was saying the image depicted Maples, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba stated, “No, that is Carroll.”
Carroll’s attorneys have argued that the episode, made public in January, undermines Trump’s argument that Carroll was not his kind.
Within the deposition, taken final October at his Mar-a-Lago property in Palm Seashore, Florida, Trump reiterated his denials of getting raped Carroll, whom he referred to as “mentally sick.”
“You already know it is not true too,” Trump stated, addressing Kaplan. “You are a political operative additionally. You are a shame.”
Earlier on Thursday, throughout a go to to a resort he owns in southwestern Eire, Trump dismissed what he referred to as unfaithful allegations “towards a wealthy man.”
“I’ve to return for a lady that made a false accusation about me, and I’ve a decide who’s extraordinarily hostile,” Trump advised reporters whereas enjoying golf on the Doonbeg resort.
U.S. District Decide Lewis Kaplan, who shouldn’t be associated to Carroll’s lawyer, warned final week that Trump may face extra authorized issues if he stored discussing the case. He didn’t handle Trump’s newest feedback earlier than trial resumed on Thursday.
The trial is anticipated to increase into subsequent week.
Carroll, a former recommendation columnist at Elle journal, stated throughout three days of testimony and cross-examination that Trump slammed her towards the wall in both 1995 or 1996, put his fingers into her vagina after which inserted his penis.
Two of Carroll’s longtime pals have testified that Carroll advised them in regards to the assault shortly after it occurred and stated they believed her.
Two different girls have additionally testified in assist of Carroll, saying Trump sexually assaulted them in separate alleged incidents many years in the past.
Trump has denied these claims as properly. He has accused Carroll of constructing up the story to drive gross sales of a 2019 memoir wherein she made her claims public.
