Global Courant 2023-05-02 22:58:40
REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
The former president’s rape trial entered a pivotal stage on Tuesday, as jurors learned from a former businesswoman who bolstered E. Jean Carroll’s rape story — by testifying that Donald Trump shoved his hand up her skirt during an cross-country flight.
“Trump decided to kiss and grope me,” testified Jessica Leeds, an 81-year-old woman who recalled a horrible business flight to New York nearly four decades ago.
“There was no conversation. It came out of nowhere… it was like a struggle… he touched my chest. It was like he had 40 trillion hands,” said Leeds.
Leeds’ disturbing testimony – about what Trump allegedly did and how he resorted misogynistic comments to deny it ever happened – was used to support Carroll’s claims, which now threaten to damage Trump’s image and drain his bank accounts.
Embarrassing cross-examination of Trump Attorney E. Jean Carroll
Over the past week, Carroll’s lawyers have been methodically building her case. Carroll himself testified in detail how Trump sexually assaulted her in a fitting room in the lingerie department of upscale clothing store Bergdorf Goodman in the city. And they’ve already used Trump’s own words — how to grab women by their genitals when you’re a celebrity — against him. But Carroll’s lawyers began calling attention to other allegations against the real estate magnate on Tuesday.
Leeds, a longtime Wall Street stockbroker who retired to the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina, described her own encounter.
On the witness stand, Leeds said she didn’t even know who Trump was when a flight attendant snatched her from the back of the plane and told her she had an invite in first class.
“I wasn’t aware of the social scene or the real estate scene in New York City,” says Leeds, who was then a traveling salesman living in Connecticut.
She described sitting in an aisle seat next to Trump, who was sitting by the window in a row that faced a wall known as the bulkhead. Within minutes, she said, he attacked her aggressively. She testified that when he brushed his hand up her skirt, she mustered up the strength to get up and storm back to her original seat in the back of the plane’s cabin.
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Earlier in the trial, Trump’s lawyers made a big deal about Carroll not yelling during her alleged attack on Bergdorf Goodman. On Tuesday, her lawyers took the opportunity to remind the jury how brutal that expectation is, with attorney Michael Ferrara asking Leeds to explain her silence that day.
“It never occurred to me to scream,” she said.
“Why not?” Ferrari asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied, noticing that a voice in her head kept asking, “Where’s the flight attendant?” Why isn’t anyone coming to help me?”
Leeds also reminded the court that there were different societal norms back then, and men expected women to keep quiet about everyday sexual harassment.
“It never occurred to me to tell anyone,” Leeds said, describing how she waited in her seat for everyone to get off the plane, avoiding looking at Trump again on her way out.
Trump lawyers go after E. Jean Carroll’s ‘fantastic’ life
Tuesday marked a turning point in Trump’s rape trial, as the proverbial dams begin to burst — with jurors ready to hear all about the former president’s long history of misogyny and allegations of sexual misconduct.
Trump defense attorney Joe Tacopina tried but failed to dissuade the jury from hearing his client speak at a 2016 presidential debate, where he shrugged off accusations of groping women and apologized for appearing rude in what he regarded as ‘locker room’ chatter.
He referenced the infamous Access Hollywood tape where he bragged about abusing his celebrity status to woo unsuspecting beautiful women with a go-to tactic: “Grab ’em by the pussy.” The jurors will soon see the tape as well, and they will hear from yet another journalist who will describe how Trump allegedly forced himself on her in 2005.
Meanwhile, Trump is notably missing in his own rape trial. Although Carroll has been in court every day since the start of last Tuesday, the former president’s lawyers have not indicated that he will even stick his head out. Instead, he just announced that he will be visiting a CNN town hall in New York Hampshire to support his bid to return to the White House in 2024.
However, Trump has stopped making inflammatory statements online. Since U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued repeated stern warnings last week that Trump might be breaking laws by interfering with the trial from a distance, the former president has not posted the case on Truth Social.
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