NEW YORK (AP) — The former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll has been battling President Donald Trump in court for nearly seven years over her allegation that he sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a fancy Manhattan department store in 1996.The fight has gone mostly in Carroll’s favor, with one jury finding Trump liable for attacking her and a second awarding her tens of millions of dollars in damages for Trump’s public attacks on her credibility.But now Trump’s Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether Carroll lied under oath during the civil litigation, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing inquiry. The investigation is related to things Carroll said during a deposition when asked about who was paying her legal fees.Here’s a look at the history of the legal fight between Carroll and Trump.
Carroll’s allegations and Trump’s denialsCarroll first went public with her story about being sexually assaulted by Trump in June 2019, when an excerpt from her soon-to-be-released memoir “What Do We Need Men For?” was published in New York magazine.In the book, she described bumping into Trump while shopping at Bergdorf Goodman, flirting with him, then physically fighting him off after he sexually assaulted her in a dressing room.The claims drew angry denials from Trump.“I’ve never met this person in my life. She is trying to sell a new book — that should be sold in the fiction section,” he said in a statement.“Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,” he said in another statement.
