Craig Ruttle/AP
E. Jean Carroll, the writer and advice columnist who in June came forward with allegations that President Donald Trump raped her inside the dressing rooms of Bergdorf Goodman more than twenty years ago, has filed a defamation lawsuit against the president.
“Nobody in this nation is above the law,” read Carroll’s complaint, which was filed on Monday in New York Supreme Court. “Nobody is entitled to conceal acts of sexual assault behind a wall of defamatory falsehoods and deflections. The rape of a woman is a violent crime; compounding that crime with acts of malicious libel is abhorrent.”
The suit alleges that Trump lied on two fronts: when he denied Carroll’s allegations, which she made in an explosive story for New York in June, and then later when the president claimed he had never even met Carroll. “Each of these statements was false,” the complaint continued. “Each of them was defamatory.”
The suit also cites various statements Trump made in response to Carroll, including as Mother Jones noted at the time, the president’s insinuation that Carroll was too ugly to assault. “Indeed, Trump often responds to claims that he has behaved inappropriately by simultaneously attacking the individual’s credibility and attractiveness,” the complaint read.
This marks the second defamation lawsuit against Trump after he dismissed Summer Zervos’ sexual assault allegations as lies. He also claimed he never met Zervos. Last week, parts of Trump’s private calendar showed that he had stayed at a Beverly Hills hotel around the time that Zervos alleges he assaulted her in 2007.
You can read Carroll’s lawsuit below:
