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Just minutes after she was allegedly assaulted by Donald Trump in a New York department store in the 1990s, E Jean Carroll called her friend ‘breathless, hyperventilating, [and] emotional’.
‘You’re not going to believe what happened to me,’ Carroll told her friend Lisa Birnbach.
Carroll gave a brief description to Birnbach over the phone of how she had just moments before met Trump at the luxury Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman.
She told Birnbach of how Trump allegedly pinned her down at the changing room wall, pulled her tights down, and assaulted her.
‘E Jean, he raped you, you should go to the police,’ Birnbach told Carroll at the time.
But Carroll refused to take the incident to the authorities.
Now, almost three decades after the alleged altercation – with the help of Birnbach who detailed their phone call from the mid-90s to the court – Carroll has been awarded $5 million dollars by a civil jury who found the former president legally responsible for sexual assault.
Lisa Birnbach arrives to federal court to testify as part of a lawsuit against former President Donald Trump in New York, May 2, 2023
A court room sketch shows Lisa Birnbach answering questions from lawyer of E. Jean Carroll during the civil trial against former U.S. president Donald Trump, New York, May 2, 2023
Who is Lisa Birnbach?
The Manhattanite was born in the Upper East Side in the late 1950s to a Jewish family. Her father had immigrated from Germany prior to the Second World War where he later worked as a diamond importer in the US. Her mother worked at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan.
After spending a year studying at Barnard College in New York, Birnbach transferred to Brown University where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in Semiotics.
She started her writing career at Village Voice in New York City, Birnbach’s Prabook profile details. She then went on to spend three years as a correspondent on CBS’s The Early Show, and hosted her own radio program The Lisa Birnbach Show.
Birnbach is an award-winning journalist with bylines in the New York Times and The New Yorker. She also spent time as deputy editor at Spy magazine.
She is perhaps best known as the author of The Official Preppy Handbook and True Prep. The satirical reference guide pokes fun at North American prep-school and university culture. Released in 1980 and 2010 respectively, the books went on to be New York Times best sellers.
Birnbach has also published over 20 other books, and has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, Parade, and Rolling Stone.
Lisa Birnbach arrives at Manhattan Federal Court, Manhattan, New York, United States. 2 May 2023
Donald Trump in 1987 with his first wife, Ivana, assault accuser E. Jean Carroll and Carroll’s then-husband
A lawyer of E. Jean Carroll questions Lisa Birnbach during a civil trial where Carroll accuses the former U.S. president in a civil lawsuit of raping her, New York, May 2, 2023
What was Lisa Birnbach’s testimony in E Jean Carroll’s case against Donald Trump?
After Carroll told her of the alleged assault over the phone in the mid-90s, Lisa Birnbach urged her friend to come forward to the police. Carroll refused.
A key witness in the 2023 civil case, handpicked by prosecutors in the civil trial to sway jurors into holding Trump liable for sexually abusing and later defaming Carroll, the court heard how Birnbach was a ‘close, close, close friend’ of Carroll and had known her for more than 20 years.
The award-winning writer said that she remembered throughout the phone call that Carroll did not use the term ‘rape’ to characterize the altercation, instead calling it a ‘fight.’
Carroll allegedly was ‘hyperventilating’ throughout the call, Birnbach said, adding that she appeared to be ‘still processing’ what had happened.
‘Lisa, you’re not going to believe what happened to me,’ Carrol told Birnbach.
Carroll told her that after some ‘jokey banter,’ Trump ‘slammed her against the wall’ in the dressing room, then did it again.
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Birnbach said that Carroll told him the former President pinned her down with one arm and shoulder and pulled her tights down with the other.
She then said Carroll kept repeating ‘he pulled down my tights’ during the call.
Lisa Birnbach attends The Grand Opening Of SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Robin Williams Center on October 5, 2016 in New York City
Lisa Birnbach arrives at Manhattan Federal Court, Manhattan, New York, 2 May 2023
Birnbach said that she was feeding her young children in her kitchen and ‘ducked out’ of the room to tell Carroll: ‘He raped you, you should go to the police.’
Carroll replied: ‘No, no, no, I don’t want to go to the police.’
She added that Carroll made her swear to ‘never speak of this again’, staying quiet until 2019 when Carroll went public when Trump was president.
The testimony was enough for a Manhattan jury to find the former liable for sexually abusing Carroll, and then defaming her in a post to social media in October 2022.
The jury of six men and three women took only three hours to reach their verdict, acquitting Trump – who was a no show during the two weeks of testimony and claimed that he doesn’t even know ‘who [Carroll] is’ – of rape, but finding him guilty of the other two charges.
What was Lisa Birnbach’s reaction after the trial?
The case had weighed ‘on my neck and back like no other.’ Birnbach told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell shortly after the court’s verdict.
‘I never thought this day would happen’, the award-winning journalist added, hailing the decision handed down by federal jurors as ‘incredible.’
‘It’s incredible validation – incredible vindication,’ Birnbach told the O’Donnell, detailing Carroll’s lengthy battle to bring the case to court but not mentioning the hefty $5million payout.
‘It’s good. I feel wonderful,’ she said. ‘It’s been a long road.’
She told the program shortly after the ruling: ‘I was doing errands today not thinking there would be a verdict.’
‘When I got a text from a lawyer saying verdict in 15 minutes – and I hightailed it to my lawyer’s office, and I was in a conference room with the lawyers who helped me out.’
She recalled: ‘I was terrified in the few minutes waiting for it.
‘When I heard the first ‘no,’ I panicked and thought, ‘It wasn’t going to be favorable for E. Jean Carroll.’
The case had weighed ‘on my neck and back like no other.’ Birnbach told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell shortly after the court’s verdict
E. Jean Carroll departs the Manhattan Federal Court in New York City on May 9, 2023. A New York jury ruled Tuesday that Donald Trump was liable for the sexual abuse of an American former magazine columnist in the mid-1990s
‘We found out that it was. I could not be happier or prouder of my friend.’ She added that she was toasting Carroll’s victory with a glass of rosé.
She added of how she and others were deposed over the past year by Trump’s attorneys, whom she said ‘used every trick in the book’ to hold up the proceedings.
‘I really, really never thought it would happen. It just seemed to go on and on,’ Birnbach said.
‘But telling the truth is a very freeing and fortunate position to be in,’ she continued.
‘And being a good friend is a very fortunate and good position to be in. So, right now, I feel very good.’
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk
