Trump’s Access Hollywood Tape Can Be Used in Defamation Lawsuit

The former president had attempted to block the infamous recording from E. Jean Carroll’s trial.

Alex Brandon/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A federal judge on Friday said that the infamous 2005 Access Hollywood tape recording of Donald Trump bragging that his celebrity allows him to “grab” women by the “pussy” can be used in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against the former president.

Judge Lewis Kaplan also rejected Trump’s request to block two other women who have accused him of sexual assault from testifying in Carroll’s lawsuit.

Carroll is suing Trump after he accused her of lying when she came forward with an account that he had raped her inside the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990s. She revealed her allegations for the first time in 2019 in New York magazine.

In his opinion, the judge said that the “grab them by the pussy” recording and the two women’s testimonies should both be allowed in the trial because they could offer evidence of sexual misconduct by Trump, which is relevant to proving whether or not Carroll’s retelling is true. 

Trump, in denying Carroll’s claims, has previously said that he couldn’t have raped Carroll because she was not his type. (If that sounds familiar, that’s because Trump has wielded the misogynistic insult to deny other women’s claims that he sexually assaulted them.) But that defense recently came into considerable doubt after an unsealed deposition transcript revealed that Trump, when shown a photo of himself with Ivanka Trump, confused his then-wife, with Carroll.

“Most of the evidence that Mr. Trump seeks to keep from the trial jury is to the effect that Mr. Trump allegedly has abused or attempted to abuse women other than Ms. Carroll in ways that are comparable to what he allegedly did to Ms. Carroll,” Kaplan wrote in his decision

“In this case, a jury reasonably could find, even from the Access Hollywood tape alone, that Mr. Trump admitted in the Access Hollywood tape that he in fact has had contact with women’s genitalia in the past without their consent, or that he had attempted to do so.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT:

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't find elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate