E. Jean Carroll Publicly Accuses Trump of Sexual Assault in New York Magazine

E. Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist and author, published an excerpt from her forthcoming book in New York Magazine alleging that Donald Trump sexually assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in either late 1995 or early 1996. Carroll, who wrote the “Ask E. Jean” advice column for Elle magazine for over two decades, detailed that she encountered Trump at the luxury Manhattan store, where he asked her to help him pick out a gift. According to her account, they ended up in a dressing room where Trump forcibly kissed her, pulled down her tights, and penetrated her with his fingers before she was able to push him away and escape. The allegation was published as part of Carroll’s book “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,” scheduled for release on July 2, 2019. Two of Carroll’s friends, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, corroborated to New York Magazine that Carroll had confided in them about the assault shortly after it occurred, with Birnbach advising her to go to the police and Martin counseling against it due to Trump’s powerful connections.

Trump immediately and vehemently denied the allegation, issuing a statement on June 21, 2019, declaring “I’ve never met this person in my life” despite photographic evidence showing them together at a social event in 1987. Three days later, on June 24, 2019, Trump made his now-infamous comment: “I say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, and she’s not my type.” Trump also suggested that Carroll was motivated by book sales, stating the allegations were “an attempt to sell copies of her new book.” These categorical denials would become the basis for Carroll’s defamation lawsuits against Trump. The timing of the allegation was politically significant, coming as Trump was gearing up for his 2020 re-election campaign and joining the accounts of more than a dozen other women who had publicly accused Trump of sexual misconduct over the years, including the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape from 2005 in which Trump bragged about grabbing women “by the pussy.”

Legal Response and Defamation Lawsuit

In November 2019, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump in New York State Supreme Court, arguing that his categorical denials—particularly his statements that she was lying and that “it never happened”—damaged her reputation and career as a trusted journalist and advice columnist. The lawsuit claimed Trump’s comments resulted in a flood of harassment, threatening messages, and vitriolic attacks on her social media accounts and professional standing. Carroll’s legal team argued that Trump’s denials went beyond simply contesting the allegation and crossed into defamatory territory by calling her a liar and suggesting she fabricated the assault for financial gain. The lawsuit sought unspecified compensatory and punitive damages for harm to Carroll’s reputation and emotional distress.

However, the case immediately encountered significant legal obstacles when Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, intervened in September 2020 to argue that Trump had made the defamatory statements in his official capacity as president, not as a private citizen. The Department of Justice sought to substitute the United States government as the defendant and have the case dismissed under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which generally provides immunity for federal employees acting within the scope of their employment. This legal maneuver effectively stalled the lawsuit for years as courts debated whether a president denying a decades-old sexual assault allegation constituted official government business. The case remained mired in procedural disputes through Trump’s final months in office and well into 2021, preventing Carroll from obtaining discovery or moving toward trial on the defamation claims.

Significance

Carroll’s public allegation represented one of the most serious and detailed accusations of sexual assault against Trump to emerge during his presidency, made more credible by contemporaneous corroboration from two friends and Carroll’s established reputation as a respected journalist. Unlike many earlier allegations that surfaced during the 2016 campaign, this accusation came with specific details about location and timeframe, along with witnesses who could testify that Carroll had disclosed the assault decades before Trump entered politics, undermining any claim of political motivation. The allegation also introduced a pattern that would repeat itself throughout the subsequent legal battles: Trump’s categorical and disparaging denials would create additional legal exposure by crossing the line from defending himself into defaming his accuser.

The case established what would become a years-long legal saga involving multiple lawsuits, the novel application of New York’s Adult Survivors Act, two jury trials, and ultimately over $88 million in damages awarded to Carroll. Trump’s June 2019 denials—particularly his “not my type” comment—would prove costly, becoming the basis for the defamation claim that resulted in the $83.3 million verdict in January 2024. The allegation and Trump’s response also highlighted the legal vulnerabilities that Trump’s combative style and inability to exercise restraint would create, as his decision to repeatedly attack Carroll rather than simply deny the allegation or decline to comment transformed a single assault claim into multiple lawsuits spanning five years. Most significantly, Carroll’s willingness to come forward despite the predictable attacks and her persistence in pursuing legal accountability would ultimately result in Trump becoming the first former U.S. president to be found civilly liable for sexual abuse, a finding that would be upheld on appeal and that federal judges would explicitly characterize as rape under common definitions of the term.