Media amplified absurd claims by E. Jean Carroll about Trump.

Reflecting on E. Jean Carroll’s Rape Allegation Against Donald Trump

Was E. Jean Carroll’s Claim Ridiculous?

As a jury in New York determines whether E. Jean Carroll was raped by Donald Trump almost three decades ago, it’s worth reflecting on the absurdity of her claim when she first made it in 2019. Carroll, a 79-year-old magazine writer, alleged that Trump assaulted her in a fitting room after the two had a noisy time in a popular department store. However, what’s more critical than her allegation is the nonsense she said immediately after.

Why Carroll’s Response Was Bizarre

It’s pretty stunning to accuse a sitting president of rape but then not want to call it rape, which is exactly what Carroll did at the time. In an interview with The New York Times, she said, “It was an episode. It was an action. It was a fight. It was not a crime. It was, I had a struggle with a guy.” She added in the same interview, “I am not — I have not been raped. Something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”

If it were just some kind of coping mechanism, a self-empowerment move to omit the word from her vocabulary, it might make sense. But when asked in a separate interview on MSNBC whether she would consider attempting to press criminal charges against Trump, her answer was even more bizarre. She flatly said no, and when asked why, she said, “I would find it disrespectful to the women who are down on the border who are being raped around the clock down there without any protection … It would just be really disrespectful.”

If you’re not following, that’s okay. Carroll was simply saying that she wouldn’t seek charges against the man who allegedly raped her because she had too much compassion for illegal immigrants. Understand?

Minimizing the Trauma

Further minimizing the traumatic event she supposedly went through, Carroll said, “Mine was three minutes, I’m a mature woman. I can handle it. I can keep going. You know, my life has gone on. I’m a happy woman.”

The Comical Details of the Non-Rape

Carroll’s account of the alleged rape is borderline comical. She claimed that she happened upon Trump at the store, and the two proceeded to flirt and giggle throughout the entire business before eventually heading toward the fitting rooms with a piece of lingerie. She alleged in an essay for New York magazine that inside the fitting room, Trump pressed her against the wall and forced his mouth onto hers, though she continued to laugh. At some point, she said he was able to force himself upon her before she could break away and exit the store.

No fellow shopper saw it. No fitting room attendant. No sales clerk. It was by every indication a ghost town in that Manhattan department store. Even Carroll acknowledged the peculiarity of such unexpected desolation, writing, “99 percent of the time, you will have an attendant in Bergdorf’s. All I can say is I did not, in this fleeting episode, see an attendant.” As for how the pair ended up in a fitting room without assistance: “And the other odd thing is that a dressing-room door was open. In Bergdorf’s dressing rooms, doors are usually locked until a client wants to try something on.”

I suppose stranger things have happened than finding yourself with a celebrity businessman who gets the rare opportunity to commit a sex crime in public completely unnoticed within an unusually empty high-end department store. It’s weird out there!

Conclusion

While it remains to be seen whether a jury in New York will take the opportunity to nip at Trump’s ankles, even if it means pretending to believe Carroll’s fantastical rape story, it’s interesting that the corporate media covering the lawsuit seemed to forget how ridiculous it was.

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