'Donald Trump raped me', author E. Jean Carroll's testimony in New York court | As it happened

During the discussion of the personal cost of going public with her accusations, Carroll broke down in tears toward the end of the day. "To be able to get my day in court, finally, is everything to me," she said. "I'm crying because I’m happy I got to tell my story in court."

Carroll said in the courtroom on Wednesday that shortly after she went public with her accusations against Donald Trump, she received "a blizzard" of derogatory messages.

In 2019, when Carroll went public, Trump posted on Twitter that he had "no idea" who she was and said in an interview that she was "totally lying" and that she was "not my type."

E. Jean Carroll’s opinions on men became a vivid hightlight on the witness stand.

Mike Ferrara, a male lawyer with Carroll, asked his client what she discovered during her research for her 2019 book 'What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal'.

Carroll reportedly responded, "Women love men, we need men. We just don’t want men to run everything." Ferrara then asked Carroll, "How do you feel about men?" Carroll responded enthusiastically, "I like them!", reportedly stoking a wave of mild laughter in the New York courtroom.

Carroll said that she did not speak up against the alleged sexual assault because she was afraid of losing her job.

E Jean Carroll's lawyer Mike Ferrara showed a video interview of Donald Trump on a television show featuring Roger Ailes, who would go on to run Fox News.

Carroll said that she was reluctant to speak up because she thought Ailes, her boss at the time at a different network, would have fired her.

While spelling out the supposed consequences of the alleged sexual assault she faced, Carroll told the New York jury: "If I meet a man who is a possibility, it’s impossible for me to even look at him and smile."

Joseph Tacopina, a lawyer for Donald Trump, said that Carroll was bringing the lawsuit for ideological reasons, and that she and two friends whom she spoke to soon after the [1996] encounter had "schemed to hurt Donald Trump politically."

Trump is accused of sexually assaulting advice columnist E Jean Carroll in a New York department store changing room in 1996. Trump is further accused of defamation after he accused Carroll of lying and purportedly expanding a hoax when she went public with her accusations when an excerpt of her memoir 'What Do We Need Men For?: A Modest Proposal' was published in the New York magazine in 2019.

The advice columnist E Jean Carroll told a New York jury that Donald Trump raped her following which she was unable to again have a romantic relationship. It "shattered my reputation", Carroll said. 

"I am here because Donald Trump raped me, and when I wrote about it, he said it didn't happen. He lied and shattered my reputation. I am here to try and get my life back," she said.