Trump assails women who accused him of sexual abuse, days before his debate with Harris
WASHINGTON — Shortly after appearing in court for an appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, Donald Trump stepped Friday in front of television cameras and brought up a string of past allegations of other acts of sexual misconduct, potentially reminding voters of incidents that were little-known or forgotten.
The former president has made hitting back at opponents and accusers a centerpiece of his political identity, but his performance at his namesake Manhattan office tower was startling even by Trump’s own combative standards.
At times he seemed to relish using graphic language and characterizations of the civil case in which a jury found he had sexually abused advice columnist E. Jean Carroll. His comments could expose Trump to further legal challenges from Carroll’s attorneys.
His remarks were especially striking given that they came just four days before Trump will debate Vice President Kamala Harris, with early voting about to begin in some parts of the country and election day two months away.
Former President Trump returned to court in New York as his lawyer fought to overturn a verdict finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and slander.
Trump is doing his best to stay in the public eye while Harris prepares for the debate in private with her advisors in Pittsburgh. That’s a reflection of their divergent campaign styles, with Trump frequently engaging with reporters — albeit often in friendly settings — while Harris has done one interview and no formal news conferences since taking President Biden’s place atop the Democratic ticket.
His team had billed Friday’s appearance as a news conference. But Trump took no questions and instead talked for an hour about the legal cases against him, calling them “fake cases,” while hardly mentioning campaign issues.
Trump’s campaign raised tens of millions of dollars off his previous indictments, convictions and appearances in court. But it’s unclear how focusing on his legal woes will help him now as he works to win over undecided voters.
Another jury last May found Trump liable for sexual abuse and ordered him to pay $5 million.
Trump insults women who have accused him
Trump, in trying to seize the political offensive by bringing up allegations against him, recalled 2016 when, in the weeks before the election, he attempted to dismiss as simple “locker room talk” a recording of him bragging about grabbing, forcibly kissing and sexually assaulting women, which triggered subsequent allegations of misconduct by several women.
New York jury finds Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll and orders the former president to pay her $5 million.
On Friday, standing inside Trump Tower, where he lived for decades before moving to Florida, he suggested women have accused him of wrongdoing because he is famous.
He made a trio of references to how he was already famous in some circles in the 1970s, and talked about his work in the real estate and construction worlds in the 1980s — before millions of today’s voters were born. At one point, he referenced the New York Post’s famous Page Six gossip section, whose writers have spent decades covering him, as being the internet of its day.
Trump called Carroll’s case against him “Monica Lewinsky Part II,” referencing the then-White House intern who had a sexual relationship with President Clinton.
Trump also repeatedly implied he would not have assaulted two of his accusers because of their looks. He said of a woman who has accused him of sexual misconduct on a plane in the 1970s, “she would not have been the chosen one,” and of Carroll, “I never touched her. I would have had no interest in meeting her in any way, shape or form.”
Return to court in case dealing with sex abuse
Trump’s comments came after he was in court to hear his lawyers argue for overturning a jury’s $5-million verdict finding Trump liable of sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996. Juries have twice awarded Carroll huge sums in defamation cases for Trump’s claiming she made up a story about him attacking her in a department store dressing room in 1996 to help her sell a memoir.
In January, a second jury awarded Carroll $83.3 million more in damages for comments Trump had made about her while he was president, finding that they were defamatory.
That hasn’t stopped Trump from continuing to make nearly identical statements to reporters. On Friday, he said again that Carroll was telling a “made-up, fabricated story.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, warned in March that she would continue to monitor Trump’s comments and would consider suing again if he kept it up. In a speedy response to his Friday comments at Trump Tower, Kaplan said in a statement, “I’ve said before and I’ll say it again: All options are on the table.”
Earlier in court, he walked in quietly and passed in front of Carroll without acknowledging or looking at her.
The former president reacted at times during the proceedings, such as shaking his head when Kaplan said that Trump sexually abused her client. He would tilt his head from side to side periodically, but otherwise sat still and mostly alone.
A Manhattan jury in May found Trump responsible for sexual abuse. Carroll says Trump attacked her in a department store dressing room. Trump’s legal team says the verdict should be overturned because some evidence that was allowed during the trial should have been excluded and vice versa.
In the midst of running for president and facing a series of other legal cases against him, Trump did not attend the Carroll trial and wasn’t there when the charges were read. He assailed the verdict as “a disgrace” on his social media site.
Carroll was one of more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual assault or harassment. She went public in a 2019 memoir. Trump said he never encountered Carroll at the store and did not know her. He has called her a “nut job” who invented her story to sell a memoir.
Trump faces unprecedented criminal and civil jeopardy for a major-party nominee. He has separately been convicted on 34 felony counts in a New York state fraud case related to hush money payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels. The judge in that case announced separately Friday that he would postpone sentencing until after the Nov. 5 election.
Trump has also been ordered to pay steep civil fines for lying about his wealth for years.
And he’s still contending with cases alleging his illegal possession of classified documents and obstruction of that investigation, his actions in trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 election, and his related activities during the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 — though none is likely to go to trial before election day.
Colvin, Price and Weissert write for the Associated Press.
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