In second day on the stand, E. Jean Carroll says #MeToo inspired her to go public with accusation against Trump

NEW YORK - E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Donald Trump of raping her two decades before he became president, testified Thursday that the #MeToo movement inspired her to speak out after years of remaining silent.

“Woman after woman stood up,” Carroll said. “I thought, well, this may be a way to change the culture of sexual violence. . . . I thought, we can actually change things if we all tell our stories.”

Taking the stand for a second day as part of her civil lawsuit against Trump, Carroll was questioned by Joe Tacopina, the former president’s attorney, who appeared focused on picking apart her allegations and generally weakening her credibility with jurors.

Carroll, a writer and former advice columnist, said Trump raped her during a chance encounter at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. She publicly accused him in 2019, publishing a memoir that included her allegation. Trump, who was in the White House at the time, denied that the attack ever happened.

The timing of her public allegation has formed a central part of Trump’s defense, with Tacopina saying in his opening remarks this week that Carroll was “falsely accusing him of rape to make money, to sell a book.”

But when Tacopina questioned her on Thursday, Carroll testified that she made the decision to come forward after seeing the flood of sexual assault allegations made against Harvey Weinstein, the disgraced film producer, and numerous other powerful men.

Carroll, 79, has said that she told two friends about the alleged Trump assault at the time and then kept silent, fearing the impact it would have on her reputation. Carroll testified that she worried about how Trump would retaliate if she spoke out.

“And that’s exactly what he did,” Carroll said Thursday. “My worst nightmare came true.”

Since Carroll accused Trump, he has assailed her as a liar again and again, including during the ongoing trial. Carroll testified on Wednesday that she received a deluge of angry messages after speaking out.

Carroll sued Trump last year for battery and defamation. She is seeking unspecified monetary damages and a court order forcing Trump to retract a statement posted on social media last year calling her a liar.

Across her two days of testimony in the case, Carroll has given the jurors an explanation of not just the alleged attack, but how her thinking about it changed over time.

When the #MeToo movement surged, Carroll said Thursday, she was “flummoxed” by what happened.

“Can we actually speak up and not be pummeled?” Carroll recalled thinking. When other women went public with their own stories, she said, “It caused me to realize that staying silent does not work.”

During sometimes fraught cross-examination on Thursday, Tacopina quizzed Carroll about her account, including her inability to remember the specific date the alleged attack occurred or why she called a friend afterward, rather than the police.

Carroll and Tacopina verbally sparred at times during his questioning, which lasted about three hours. She appeared to grow irritated at some moments, including when the attorney asked why Carroll did not scream when Trump allegedly assaulted her.

“One of the reasons women don’t come forward is because they’re always asked, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’” Carroll said. “Some women scream, some women don’t. It keeps women silent.”

After more back-and-forth with Tacopina, Carroll responded with audible frustration: “He raped me whether I screamed or not!”

Carroll’s first round of testimony in the case on Wednesday centered on her agonizing account of being brutalized by Trump after they bumped into each other at Bergdorf Goodman, the department store.

Carroll spoke in graphic detail Wednesday about how she said Trump assaulted her inside a dressing room. During her testimony, she alleged that Trump restrained her, first forced his fingers inside of her and then continued assaulting her until she managed to knee him and get away.

Carroll stood up in the courtroom to demonstrate how she said she was standing when Trump pinned her and then how she tried to fend him off.

Under questioning from her lawyer, Carroll recounted how the alleged attack left her traumatized, filled with guilt and unable to have romantic relationships or sex with men.

Carroll returned to the stand a day later for what was expected to be a more confrontational line of questioning. Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations and called her a liar. During his opening statement on Tuesday, Tacopina called Carroll’s account “unbelievable,” accusing her of making up a story to sell books, damage Trump politically and gain greater fame.

With Carroll on the stand, Tacopina seemed focused on framing the details of her allegations as implausible. Tacopina repeatedly returned to Carroll’s contention that Trump had pulled her tights down, asking how she could raise her knee in that position. The attorney also seemed incredulous at Carroll’s testimony that she had been wearing four-inch heels.

Carroll scoffed at Tacopina’s question. “I can dance forwards and backwards in four-inch heels,” she said.

Tacopina also pressed Carroll on her inability to name a specific date when the alleged attack occurred.

Carroll has said she could not specify when the attack took place, writing in her lawsuit that it was either 1995 or 1996. Testifying on Wednesday, Carroll said “the when, the date has just been something that I am constantly trying to pin down.” Carroll now thinks it occurred in the spring of 1996, she has said in court.

The trial, which began Tuesday, is expected to continue through at least next week. Carroll is expected to take the stand again Monday, with Tacopina resuming his questioning.

Trump has not appeared in court so far during the trial, and his attorneys have not said whether he plans to attend any proceedings or testify. He has no obligation to appear or testify. Carroll’s attorneys say they do not plan to call Trump to the stand since they can play a recording of his deposition in the case instead.

Trump is mounting another bid for the presidency. While the trial in New York was continuing on Thursday, Trump attended a campaign event in New Hampshire, where he delivered remarks but did not mention Carroll or her lawsuit.

Trump’s commentary on the case has already appeared to annoy U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who is overseeing the case. On Wednesday morning, before Carroll began testifying, Trump posted to social media calling her allegations “a fraudulent & false story.” Kaplan warned that Trump was close to crossing a line; Tacopina promised to ask his client to stop posting about the case.

In addition to this trial, Trump continues to face a whirlwind of investigative scrutiny and legal cases, including probes into his handling of classified documents and his efforts to block Joe Biden’s presidential victory in 2020. This month, Trump was indicted in Manhattan on 34 felony counts related to payments made in 2016 to keep an adult-film actress from publicly alleging an affair with Trump. And last year, New York’s attorney general filed a civil lawsuit against the former president, accusing him and others of fraud.

Trump has denied wrongdoing in all matters and assailed the investigators as politically motivated.

Carroll’s lawsuit carries no criminal penalty, but the case still has high stakes for Trump. On top of any financial damages that might get awarded if jurors side with Carroll, the case also revives an issue that has long dogged Trump: accusations of misconduct involving women.

Carroll is among more than a dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Many of them spoke out late in the 2016 presidential race, when The Washington Post published a recording in which he spoke graphically about grabbing women by their genitals.

Trump has denied these allegations, called his accusers liars and, in some cases, insulted their appearances. He did much the same with Carroll when she spoke out in 2019. She first sued him for defamation the same year; that case is still pending. She filed a second lawsuit last year, this one leading to the trial unfolding in New York.

Attorneys for Carroll plan to call two of Trump’s other accusers to the stand, saying that their accounts will echo hers and suggest a pattern of behavior.

In court on Thursday, Tacopina pressed Carroll about why she never called police or went to the hospital. Carroll said she was in physical pain after the alleged attack, testifying that when she returned home, “My vagina still hurt from his fingers.”

Carroll said that after the alleged attack, she tried to get back to her normal life and routine. The following day, Carroll said, she returned to work.

“I was going to go on,” she said.

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Berman reported from Washington. The Washington Post’s Isaac Arnsdorf in Manchester, N.H., contributed to this report.