Lisa Birnbach (right), a friend of Donald Trump (left) accuser E Jean Carroll, said she was ‘breathless’ and ’emotional’ in call after he allegedly raped her (Pictures: AFP/Getty Images/AP)
Former President Donald Trump’s accuser was ‘breathless’ and ’emotional’ in a phone call after he allegedly raped her, said her friend.
Columnist E Jean Carroll sounded ‘breathless, hyperventilating, emotional’ during the call, testified her friend Lisa Birnbach on Tuesday.
‘Her voice was all kinds of things’, said Birnbach.
Birnbach said Carroll told her that Trump ‘pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights’.
It was ‘like she couldn’t believe it,’ Birnbach said. ‘She was still processing what happened to her. It had just happened to her.’
Birnbach said she slipped out of the kitchen where she was feeding her kids to whisper on the phone: ‘E Jean he raped you. You should go to the police.’
But Carroll refused and instead promised Birnbach to never again say a thing about the matter.
It was the sixth day of the civil trial in a federal court in Manhattan. Carroll alleges that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s and that he defamed her while denying her allegations.
Jessica Leeds, who claimed that Trump sexually assaulted her in the first class of a plane in the 1970s, also took the witness stand on Tuesday. Leeds recounted that Trump ‘all of a sudden’ tried kissing and groping her even though ‘there was no conversation’.
‘He was trying to kiss me. He was trying to pull me toward him. He was grabbing my breasts,’ said Leeds. ‘It was like he had 40 zillion hands. It was a tussling match between the two of us.’
Leeds, 81, said she did not believe anyone would hear her out on the incident at the time.
‘Men could basically get away with a lot and that’s sort of where I put it,’ she said.
After her testimony, Leeds said, ‘I’m exhausted, I’m above it all and I hope I never have to tell my story again, according to the Independent.
At the end of the proceedings, Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina said the ex-president will not be attending the trial. Trump is not obligated to appear. On Tuesday, Trump was still visiting his golf courses in Scotland and Ireland.
Carroll’s legal team said they would be resting their case by Thursday at noon.
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Other witnesses testified in the sixth day of the trial around columnist E Jean Carroll’s allegations that Donald Trump raped her.