Nicolle Wallace connects the dots in E. Jean Carroll case as Trump rape defamation trial nears end
The E. Jean Carroll case against Donald Trump is nearing its end as lawyer Joe Tacopina revealed that they will not call any witnesses to mount any defense in the case.
On Wednesday, Carroll's lawyer called a trauma specialist, who walked through all of the attacks Tacopina made on Carroll about how she didn't do enough to fight back against Trump when it allegedly happened, implying that it meant it wasn't rape.
"They heard about Carroll's response to the incident that there is no right or typical normal way to act during or after being raped," Wallace said. "But Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina is wrong to take anything out of why she did not scream or call the police. And the psychologist talked about how trauma can alter how someone responds. She said that screaming during rape would be a response — it is the last thing that is likely to occur."
At the end of the testimony from Natasha Stoynoff, another accuser of Donald Trump, they played the "Access Hollywood" tape.
Stoynoff told the jury she was "sick to my stomach" when she saw the footage for the first time, People Magazine reported. She then thought: "Oh, he does this to a lot of women. It's not just me. It's not something I did."
Shedding some tears, Stoynoff said, "I worried that because I didn't say anything at the time that other women were hurt by him."
Her story is very similar to the claims Trump made in the video.
She was interviewing Trump and his wife "about how happy their first year of marriage had been."
"When we took a break for the then-very-pregnant Melania to go upstairs and change wardrobe for more photos, Donald wanted to show me around the mansion," Stoynoff wrote previously about her encounter. "There was one 'tremendous' room in particular, he said, that I just had to see."
She continued: "We walked into that room alone, and Trump shut the door behind us. I turned around, and within seconds he was pushing me against the wall and forcing his tongue down my throat."
Trump later told her that they would be having an affair.
"There are two patterns that have clearly been presented to this," said Wallace. "It begins with unwanted kissing. It's escalating in the testimony of the women that have testified. And then it's described by Trump, right? 'I can't help myself, I just can't stop kissing. They let you grab them in the 'p,' they just let you do it.'"
MSNBC legal analyst and host Katie Phang that it was because of the judge's ruling that the "Access Hollywood" tape could be shown to the jury.
"But to hear the pattern and that is exactly the word that E. Jean's lawyers will be focusing upon, a comment and practice by Donald Trump," said Phang. "Today under oath Natasha testifies in front of a jury that he led her into a room, the door closed behind and he shoved her against the wall and began to kiss her without her consent. That's exactly how E. Jean Carroll said what happened to her in that dressing room. And we have officially heard from the defense team of Trump that there will be no defense put forward by Trump. There is no testimony from Donald Trump himself, no expert in psychiatry that was originally supposed to be called. And there will be the closing of the case."
See the full discussion with the panel of reporters below.
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