Donald Trump’s civil rape trial: Week 1 highlights, what’s ahead after accuser E. Jean Carroll’s dramatic testimony

The first bombshell trial Donald Trump faces in his hometown got underway in Manhattan last week, when writer E. Jean Carroll accused the former president in a disturbing account of raping and sexually assaulting her more than 25 years ago.

A captivated panel of nine New Yorkers — six men and three women who will remain anonymous — heard diametric opening arguments about the alleged assault before Carroll described the incident in her own words during two dramatic days on the witness stand.

Carroll, 79, said Trump raped her on an unoccupied floor of Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s after they bumped into each other in a chance encounter.

“It was a horrible feeling because he curved, he put his hand inside of me and curved his finger. As I’m sitting here today, I can still feel it,” Carroll testified, later adding, “Then he inserted his penis.”

Trump, 76, absent from his civil rape trial as he campaigns for president again, alleges Carroll and her friends made the whole thing up to sell a book and destroy him politically.

The longtime advice columnist’s lawyer, Shawn Crowley, told the jury in her opening argument that the assault occurred after Trump asked Carroll to help pick out lingerie for an unnamed woman.

Crowley said the shopping trip turned dark once they made it to the dressing rooms in the sixth-floor lingerie department.

“Donald Trump slammed Ms. Carroll against a wall. He pressed his lips against her. She struggled to break free but couldn’t. Trump was almost twice her size.”

Carroll, one of 26 women to accuse Trump of assault, told two friends in the aftermath. Lisa Birnbach urged her to report it, and Carol Martin convinced her to stay silent.

“The evidence will show that it was a different world for women, especially single women who were trying to make successful careers in the public spotlight,” Crowley said.

“ [She] blamed herself for what happened. She thought she should have known that Donald Trump could be violent toward women.”

In searing testimony, Carroll described how her trauma destroyed her ability to forge a romantic connection or be sexually intimate with someone ever again.

Jurors heard of how she lost her job at Elle after coming forward in 2019, when Trump called her a liar from the White House, infamously denying the assault because she was not his “type.”

Carroll thought Trump would claim the encounter was consensual.

“It means that besides me being a liar and a woman out to sell books and an operative of the Democratic party and a woman who accuses all sorts of other men for rape, I’m too ugly to attack, too ugly to rape,” Carroll testified.

In his opening, Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said his client shouldn’t be held liable for sexual battery or defamation, charging that “calling her a liar was the truth.”

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“[You] are going to hear from E. Jean Carroll that during this colossal battle her tights never ripped. She never let go of her purse that she was holding as she was getting violently raped. She held onto her purse. That hand could have been used for something else, but instead she held on to her purse. And she never screamed, not once, never screamed,” Tacopina told the jury.

During his aggressive cross-examination, Carroll turned the tables on Tacopina.

“[One] of the reasons [women] don’t come forward is because they are always asked, ‘Why didn’t you scream?’ Some women scream. Some women don’t. It keeps women silent,” Carroll said.

A steadfast Carroll said if she was lying, she would have said she “screamed my head off.”

“I didn’t,” Carroll testified. “When I came forward, I told the truth. I said I didn’t scream. We could probably come up with more reasons I didn’t scream, but I did not scream. I did not scream.”

Tacopina interrogated Carroll on her memories. During the years-long litigation, she has acknowledged not remembering which year it happened, only that it occurred between 1994 and 1996.

Jurors will hear from a clinical psychologist about how it’s common for victims of sexual violence to experience fragmented traumatic memories, wherein they recall visceral details about the attack but forget broader details like the time and location.

Although Trump has been missing in action from his trial, his presence has been felt through his online attacks against Carroll and her lawyers. His Truth Social missives drew an admonishment from Judge Lewis Kaplan.

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Trump doubled down Friday, blasting a news release accusing Carroll of sexually harassing Roger Ailes. The late longtime Fox News CEO died in 2017 in disgrace amid a flood of sexual misconduct allegations from female anchors at the network.

The stunning allegations presented so far against Trump are just the beginning. The second week of the trial is expected to include testimony from two other women, Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, who were among the first to levy accusations when he ran for president in 2016.

Whether or not Trump testifies, jurors will hear him talking about sexual assault in the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

“You will hear from two other women … who will testify that Donald Trump assaulted them in very much the same way he assaulted Ms. Carroll because that is his MO,” Crowley said Tuesday.

“You are going to hear Donald Trump say that in his own words.”