NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Former President Donald Trump\u2019s behavior toward women, long a source of flashpoints in his political career, now faces a new level of scrutiny: a trial in a lawsuit accusing him of rape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jury selection is set to start Tuesday in the case filed by former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who says Trump raped her in a luxury New York department store dressing room in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump, who is\u00a0unlikely to attend\u00a0the trial, has called the accusations \u201ca complete con job.\u201d Carroll, who is seeking unspecified damages, casts the case as a #MeToo-inspired quest for accountability from the epitome of prominent men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m filing this lawsuit not just for myself but for every woman in America who has been grabbed, groped, harassed, sexually assaulted and has spoken up and still has been disgraced, shamed or fired,\u201d\u00a0Carroll said\u00a0early on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The lawsuit\u00a0is putting Trump\u2019s history with women under a microscope as he runs to return to the White House. But if a trial over a rape accusation would be a crisis for most candidates, with Trump, it remains to be seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo the extent that the chaos around Trump is his biggest challenge, this reinforces that narrative,\u201d said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who worked on Marco Rubio\u2019s 2016 presidential campaign. \u201cThe No. 1 thing I hear in focus groups of Republican voters is that they\u2019re tired of the constant drama that comes with Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump\u2019s political rise was riddled with criticism of his attitudes and conduct toward women. There were his\u00a0insulting remarks\u00a0about onetime Republican rival Carly Fiorina\u2019s appearance, his misogynistic comments about former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, his double-down on denigrating a former Miss Universe whom he had pilloried about her weight and more \u2014 including, most notoriously, the crass\u00a0\u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d hot-mic recording\u00a0that nearly derailed his 2016 campaign and elicited rare contrition for what he called \u201clocker room banter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then there were the dozen-plus women, including Carroll, who came forward during his campaign and presidency to accuse him of sexual assault and harassment. He denied all the claims. Other lawsuits over them were\u00a0dropped\u00a0or\u00a0dismissed, but Carroll\u2019s has endured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Trump prevails in the case, he will likely tout it as another example of him beating what he sees as spurious claims about him, Conant said. If Trump loses, the impact could depend on the circumstances of the judgment. Carroll is seeking unspecified damages and a retraction of Trump\u2019s denials of her allegations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump has aimed to use his other legal troubles \u2014 including a recent, unrelated\u00a0indictment\u00a0and\u00a0ongoing investigations\u00a0into other matters \u2014 to bolster his support among fellow Republicans, painting the various probes as a politically motivated \u201cwitch hunt\u201d and a broad attempt to \u201cinterfere\u201d with the 2024 election. It\u2019s unclear whether the voters he seeks to reach will sympathize with his portrayal of Carroll\u2019s lawsuit as a pile-on, see it as a growing distraction or ignore it altogether.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His campaign saw\u00a0a spike in donations\u00a0after his indictment, which accuses him of fudging his company\u2019s records to try to conceal payments made to suppress stories about his alleged marital infidelity; he denies the charges and the sexual encounters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His favorability ratings have\u00a0held steady\u00a0at 34% among U.S. adults overall and 68% among Republicans, according to a recent poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beyond its political ramifications, the trial marks a #MeToo milestone, even after closely watched civil and criminal cases against disgraced movie honcho\u00a0Harvey Weinstein\u00a0and other powerful men. The case also is drawing national attention to a New York law that\u00a0allows for lawsuits over decades-old sex crime claims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The time frame for pursuing criminal charges over the allegations, which Carroll never reported to police, has long since passed. If she prevails in the lawsuit, it could cost Trump money but not his freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A former magazine journalist, talk show host and \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d writer, Carroll was best known \u2014 at least until her lawsuit \u2014 for the eponymous advice column she wrote for Elle magazine from 1993 through 2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Carroll, she crossed paths with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman sometime in 1995 or 1996, when he was a real estate mogul and man about town. Recognizing her as \u201cthat advice lady,\u201d he asked her to help him browse for a women\u2019s gift, bantered with Carroll about a bodysuit and steered her to a fitting room, she says. Then, in her telling, he suddenly forced himself on her while she tried to push him off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat rape changed my life, which is shocking for me to now understand,\u201d she said in a deposition, a legal term for pretrial questioning under oath.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Carroll, she immediately lost interest in dating and desire, then lost her job after she told her story in a 2019 memoir and Trump responded that she was \u201ctotally lying.\u201d Elle has said her contract wasn\u2019t renewed for unrelated reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump says he never encountered Carroll at Bergdorf Goodman and had no idea who she was when she publicly accused him. He has asserted that she invented the story to sell her book.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a false accusation. Never happened, never would happen,\u201d he said during a caustic 5 1\/2-hour deposition, which can be played for jurors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In\u00a0snippets released to date, he called Carroll a \u201cnut job,\u201d her attorney \u201ca disgrace\u201d and the case \u201ca big, fat hoax.\u201d He reiterated his description of Carroll as \u201cnot my type\u201d \u2014 and\u00a0misidentified her\u00a0in a 1987 photo as Marla Maples, his wife from 1993 to 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides Carroll, two Trump accusers who never sued are set to testify in Carroll\u2019s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jessica Leeds\u00a0has said Trump grabbed her breasts and tried to put his hand up her skirt when they were seatmates on a flight three decades ago. People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff has said Trump forcibly kissed her against her will while showing her around his Florida home for a 2005 article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jurors also are expected to hear the \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d recording.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The trial will unfold at a federal courthouse a block from the state court where Trump was arraigned earlier this month on his indictment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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