E. Jean Carroll — a former magazine columnist who sued former President Trump for defamation after he denied raping her in the mid-1990s — scored a legal victory last week. A federal judge ruled that the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape recording of Donald Trump talking disparagingly about women in 2005 can be used as evidence in Carroll’s defamation trial against Trump, scheduled to begin in late April. District Judge Lewis Kaplan will also allow the testimony of two women — Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds — who came forward with their own sexual assault allegations against Trump after the Access Hollywood tape surfaced in 2016.
Straight Arrow News contributor Jordan Reid takes a look at the judge’s ruling:
Trump’s team argued that the other allegations of assault were very different from Carroll’s to which the judge said, “really?” — noting that “the alleged acts are far more similar than different in the important aspects.” Kaplan went on to say that “a jury reasonably could find even from the Access Hollywood tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted that he, in fact, has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he has attempted to do so.”
Trump’s tremendous, very big, very impressive history of sexually assaulting women is no secret. I probably have to say “alleged assault” because I don’t feel like getting sued either, but it’s also my opinion that the guy is a sociopathic serial predator — so there you go.
And as someone who, like most women I know, has experienced various incidents of assault over the course of her life, virtually all of which have been brushed aside as “you know, it’s just the way it goes,” I have to say, watching someone stand up to one of the most powerful men on the planet over and over and over, just refusing to be silenced in the face of what I have to assume are overwhelming personal and professional costs — it’s badass.
