Donald Trump Access Hollywood tape can be used in civil rape trial, judge rules

The tape of Donald Trump boasting about sexual aggression towards women that detonated late in the 2016 election campaign but did not prevent him from winning the presidency will be permitted at a forthcoming civil trial in New York.

A federal judge ruled on Friday that the columnist E Jean Carroll can use the 2005 remarks by Trump, caught on tape in conversation with an Access Hollywood TV show personality, in support of her lawsuit accusing Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s.

Carroll sued Trump for defamation after he denied the rape ever happened or that he even knew the former longtime Elle magazine columnist, after she first described in a 2019 book her encounter with Trump in late 1995 or early 1996.

In the leaked tape, the former president boasts graphically while talking to Billy Bush, then with Access Hollywood, about how celebrities such as himself can grope women without waiting for consent.

Carroll maintains that a friendly chance encounter between herself and Trump at an upscale Manhattan department store turned violent when both of them entered a dressing room to supposedly try on lingerie that Trump wanted to purchase for a friend, but instead she alleges he raped her there.

The judge also said he will allow jurors to hear testimony from two other women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.