The lawyers of donald trump want to ban the tape “Access Hollywood,” in which the former president graphically boasts about how celebrities can abuse women, from being shown at his upcoming civil trial for rape started by E.Jean Carroll.
Trump’s lawyers filed documents in Manhattan federal court Thursday night to block references to the 2005 taped encounter and the tape itself, in the trial due to start in April stemming from the claims of columnist E. Jean. Carroll.
Donald Trump’s legal representatives called the tape “irrelevant and highly damaging” and said it could unfairly be used to suggest to jurors that Trump had a propensity for sexual assault and therefore must have raped Carroll. They also asked Avoid testimony from two women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct and ban references to his campaign speeches.
Carroll, 79, sued Trump in November after New York state temporarily changed laws to allow adult rape victims to sue their abusers, even if the attacks occurred decades ago. The trial is scheduled for April 24 and Trump and Carroll are expected to testify.
Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine, said in her 2019 book “What Do We Need Men For?” that Trump raped her in late 1995 or early 1996 in the Bergdorf Goodman dressing rooman upscale Manhattan department store.
Trump has vehemently, sometimes angrily, denied this in public statements.
In an October deposition for the upcoming trial, Trump dismissed Carroll’s claims, saying, “Physically, she’s not my type,” though he also misidentified her as an ex-wife when he was shown a photo.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, confronted him with claims that two dozen other women had made against him and asked if any of them were true. “I would say. I mean, don’t see any. I mean, you haven’t shown me anything,” Trump responded, according to the transcript.
Efforts to bar him from appearing at trial could increase the relevance of lewd comments Donald Trump made in the “Access Hollywood” tape, which was released just weeks before he won the November 2016 presidential election.
On the tape, he said that sometimes when he sees beautiful women: “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. just kiss. I don’t even wait.” And she added that “when you are a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” including grabbing women between the legs.
Trump then issued a rare apology, saying the comments had been “locker room jokes” captured with an active microphone.
Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, argued that Trump’s comments in the 2005 video help show that what allegedly happened to her client was not “an isolated act.”
Source: La Opinion
