Donald Trump and Natasha Stoynoff (right: photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images; left, screenshot via EW YouTube)
One of Donald Trump’s other accusers, called by E. Jean Carroll, burst into tears on Wednesday on the witness stand. Journalist Natasha Stoynoff, a self-proclaimed veteran of the Trump beat for People magazine, had written a profile on the then-real estate mogul and private citizen in Mar-a-Lago.
‘Not a word came out of me’
In 2005, Trump and his wife Melania had just married. Melania was pregnant at the time. Stoynoff said she was sent to Mar-a-Lago to profile them when Trump led her into a room, apparently to show her a painting.
When she walked in, Stoynoff testified, Trump closed the door and started kissing her. Her voice quivered as she began to recount the alleged incident and wiped the tears from her eyes. She said the turn of events left her speechless.
“No words came out of me,” she testified. “I tried.”
Throughout the trial, Trump’s legal team questioned Carroll’s testimony that she did not scream, calling it inconsistent with a rape charge. Carroll’s expert psychologist, Leslie Lebowitz, said earlier today that this is common in sexual assault cases. Stoynoff, for her part, told jurors she was also silent.
“Did you shout?” Carroll’s attorney, Michael Ferrara, asked.
“No,” Stoynoff said.
Stoynoff said the alleged assault ended when a butler entered the room. She testified that because she was afraid of reprisals from Trump and her career, she went on with the rest of the interview and did not mention the alleged incident in her article.
When she came out, Stoynoff said, Trump told her, “Remember what Marla said: the best sex she ever had,” in an apparent nod to an infamous cover of the New York Post.
Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan let Stoynoff and another Trump accuser, Jessica Leeds, testify in the Carroll case, finding their accounts similar enough to support the plaintiff’s case within the rules of evidence.
Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll and Jessica Leeds (Photos L-R: Emily Elconin/Getty Images; AP/Brittainy Newman; YouTube screenshot)
‘As if he had 40 million hands’
On Tuesday, Leeds testified that Trump groped her on a plane around 1979.
“He was grabbing my boobs, he was – it’s like he had 40 million hands, and it was a fight between the two of us,” Leeds said. “And it was when he started to put his hand under my skirt that it kind of gave me a jolt of strength, and I managed to squirm out of the seat, and storm back to my seat. in the trainer.”
The stories of Carroll, Leeds and Stoynoff span a quarter-century apart, but they share striking similarities, including in Trump’s reactions to them.
In each case, Trump suggested that each of the women was unattractive. Former president said of Carroll: ‘He’s not my type’, even though he mistook an old photo of Carroll for one of his ex-wives, Marla Maples, during a deposition .
He said of Leeds: ‘She wouldn’t be my first choice’, leading her to share an old photo of herself with The New York Times.
Trump mocked Stoynoff at a political rally in front of a roaring crowd, saying, “Look at her. Look at his words. You tell me. What do you think? I do not think so.”
When asked what she thought he meant by that, Stoynoff replied, “I guess he means I’m not attractive.”
Before the trial, Judge Kaplan allowed Carroll to show jurors the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged to Billy Bush about grabbing women “by the p—-“.
Donald Trump and Billy Bush exit the bus in the “Access Hollywood” tape. (Screenshot via NBC)
Shown the footage in court, Stoynoff testified that she felt “sick to her stomach” when she saw the tape.
Then, Stoynoff said, the thought came to him, “Oh, he does that to a lot of women. It’s not just me. It’s not something I did.
Still, Stoynoff added, in a shaky voice, that she felt a lingering sense of guilt.
“It worried me because I didn’t say anything at the time that other women had been hurt by him,” she said.
Trump would later walk away from his “Access Hollywood” remarks as “locker room talk” when confronted about them by Anderson Cooper during the 2016 presidential debate.
When she saw this, Stoynoff said, “I just felt very upset that he was lying to the American people.”
On Thursday, Carroll’s case is expected to conclude and Trump will not present a defense case.
She shows jurors portions of Trump’s deposition and she intends to call former TV presenter Carol Martin, one of two women Carroll says she told about the alleged assault.
Cande Carroll, the advice columnist’s sister, told jurors that E. Jean had hidden her alleged rape from her family. She said they found out when the rest of the world did, through the publication of an excerpt from her book, “What Do We Need Men For?” in New York Magazine.
E. Jean Carroll, her sister said, sent the family a link to the article. The long silence that preceded it, she said, was consistent with their Indiana upbringing.
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