E. Jean Carroll Sues Trump for Defamation

Jim Treacher | 1:43 PM on November 04, 2019

E. Jean Carroll is photographed, Sunday, June 23, 2019, in New York. Carroll, a New York-based advice columnist, claims Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a dressing room at a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s. Trump denies knowing Carroll. (AP Photo/Craig Ruttle)

A few months ago, advice columnist E. Jean Carroll accused Donald Trump of sexually assaulting her in the changing room of a Manhattan department store in the mid-’90s. I know that to doubt the word of a woman is misogynist, but I listened to everything Carroll said and I simply don’t believe her. She’s an unreliable narrator, to put it mildly.

Anderson Cooper went straight to commercial right after this comment. pic.twitter.com/hkM7KCYw71

— Cameron Cawthorne (@Cam_Cawthorne) June 25, 2019

I’m not a Trump fan, and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the guy who said “Grab ’em by the pussy” might be capable of such a thing. But that doesn’t prove he did it. All due apologies to the #Resistance, but believing the worst about a person is not proof of wrongdoing.

Carroll didn’t get what she wanted out of her previous media tour, so now she’s back. Jan Ransom, NYT:

E. Jean Carroll had publicly shared a secret in June that she had kept largely to herself for more than two decades: Donald J. Trump, she said, had raped her in the dressing room of an upscale department store in New York City…

Now Ms. Carroll, a journalist and columnist for Elle Magazine, has sued Mr. Trump for defamation, saying in a lawsuit filed in state court on Monday that Mr. Trump had damaged her reputation and her career when he denied her allegation in June…

The suits raise the possibility that the president will have to defend his statements in court, and evidence about the truth of the allegations will come out.

Okay. If it really happened, prove it. Let the truth come out and the chips fall where they may.

And if she can’t prove it, this allegation will just be added to the list of all the things Trump has been accused of doing. There will be no consequences for making the accusation, even if nothing comes of it. Either way, Carroll will benefit from this. Nobody will blame her for trying.

I happen to think that rape is such a serious crime that it does matter whether or not it happened. This makes me a “rape-denier,” apparently.