Donald Trump and Natasha Stoynoff (r: photo by Emily Elconin/Getty Images; l. screenshot via EW YouTube)
One of Donald Trump’s other accusers, called by E. Jean Carroll, broke into tears on the witness stand on Wednesday. Journalist Natasha Stoynoff, a self-described veteran of the Trump beat for People magazine, had been writing a profile about the then-real estate tycoon and private citizen at Mar-a-Lago.
‘No words came out of me’
In 2005, Trump and his wife Melania had been recently married. Melania had been pregnant at the time. Stoynoff said she was sent to Mar-a-Lago to profile them when Trump led her to a room, ostensibly to show her a painting.
When she entered, Stoynoff testified, Trump shut the door and started kissing her. Her voice quaked as she started narrating the alleged incident and wiped tears from her eyes. She said the turn of events left her speechless.
“No words came out of me,” she testified. “I tried.”
Throughout the trial, Trump’s legal team questioned Carroll’s testimony that she didn’t scream, calling it inconsistent with a rape accusation. Carroll’s expert psychologist Leslie Lebowitz testified earlier in the day that this is common in sexual assault cases. Stoynoff, for her part, told jurors she was also silent.
“Did you scream?” Carroll’s attorney Michael Ferrara asked.
“No,” Stoynoff said.
Stoynoff said that the alleged assault ended when a butler walked in on the room. She testified that because she was afraid of Trump’s retaliation and her career, she proceeded with the rest of the interview and didn’t mention the alleged incident in her article.
When she got out, Stoynoff said, Trump told her: “Don’t forget what Marla said: Best sex she ever had,” in an apparent nod to an infamous New York Post cover.
Senior U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan let Stoynoff and another Trump accuser, Jessica Leeds, testify in Carroll’s case, finding their accounts similar enough to support the plaintiff’s case within the rules of evidence.
Donald Trump, E. Jean Carroll and Jessica Leeds (Photos left to right: Emily Elconin/Getty Images; AP/Brittainy Newman; YouTube screengrab)
‘Like he had 40 zillion hands’
On Tuesday, Leeds testified that Trump groped her on an airplane around 1979.
“He was grabbing my breasts, he was — it’s like he had 40 zillion hands, and it was a tussling match between the two of us,” Leeds testified. “And it was when he started putting his hand up my skirt that that kind of gave me a jolt of strength, and I managed to wiggle out of the seat, and I went storming back to my seat in the coach.”
The accounts of Carroll, Leeds and Stoynoff span a quarter of a century apart, but they share striking similarities, including in Trump’s reactions to them.
In each case, Trump suggested each of the women was unattractive. The former president said of Carroll: “She’s not my type,” even though he mistook an old photograph of Carroll with one of his ex-wives Marla Maples in a deposition.
He said of Leeds: “She would not be my first choice,” leading her to share an old photograph of herself with the New York Times.
Trump jeered Stoynoff at a political rally to a roaring crowd by saying: “Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me. What do you think? I don’t think so.”
Asked what she thought he meant by that, Stoynoff answered: “I’m assuming he means that I am unattractive.”
Before the trial, Judge Kaplan allowed Carroll to show jurors the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump boasted to Billy Bush about grabbing women “by the p—-.”
Donald Trump and Billy Bush exit the bus in the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape. (Screenshot via NBC)
Shown the footage in court, Stoynoff testified that she felt “sick to my stomach” when she saw that tape.
Then, Stoynoff said, the thought occurred to her: “Oh, he does this to a lot of women. It’s not just me. It’s not something I did.”
Still, Stoynoff added, in a quaking voice, that she felt a lingering sense of guilt.
“I worried that because I didn’t say anything at the time that other women were hurt by him,” she said.
Trump would later distance himself from his “Access Hollywood” remarks as “locker room talk” when confronted about them by Anderson Cooper at the 2016 presidential debate.
When she saw that, Stoynoff said: “I just felt very upset that he was lying to the American people.”
On Thursday, Carroll’s case is expected to rest, and Trump will not present a defense case.
She is showing jurors portions of Trump’s deposition, and she intends to call former TV anchorwoman Carol Martin, one of two women Carroll says she told about the alleged assault.
Cande Carroll, the advice columnist’s sister, told jurors that E. Jean kept her alleged rape from her family. She said that they found out about it when the rest of the world did, through the publication of an excerpt of her book, “What Do We Need Men For?” in New York Magazine.
E. Jean Carroll, her sister said, emailed the family a link to the article. The long silence that preceded it, she said, was in keeping with their Indiana upbringing.
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Natasha Stoynoff cries on stand in E. Jean Carroll v. Trump