By Lauren del Valle | CNN
Former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll took the stand Wednesday morning in her battery and defamation lawsuit against former President Donald Trump.
“I’m here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Carroll testified. “He lied and shattered my reputation and I’m here to try to get my life back.”
Carroll is suing Trump for battery and defamation, alleging that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the spring of 1996 and then defamed her years later when she went public with the allegations. Trump has repeatedly denied her allegations.
On the stand, Carroll recalled being “delighted” to be shopping with Trump, thinking it’d be a great story to tell friends.
“Well, it was such a funny New York scene,” Carroll said she thought at the time. “I love to give advice and here was Donald Trump asking me for advice about buying a present.”
She was not at all fearful of Trump, who was friendly and very funny. “I was absolutely enchanted, I could only think of it as a scene that is such a great story,” Carroll said.
The tone of their conversation was “very joshing and light” as they moved through the store.
Carroll was too focused on Trump to notice anyone else once they took the escalator from the first floor, she testified.
“I wasn’t looking, I was watching him and watching that I didn’t fall when the escalator hit the top.”
Carroll recalled she was probably flirting with Trump the whole time before the alleged assault, not thinking it was intimate or serious.
When the two made their way to the lingerie department, Carroll said the “comedy was escalating” but it never occurred to her that Trump might try to rape her.
Zeroing in on a sheer gray bodysuit, Trump told Carroll to try it on, she said. She jokingly told him he should try it on instead.
Carroll had no intention to try on the lingerie, she testified Wednesday, but followed…
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