Trump's official website shares article attacking E. Jean Carroll

On Friday, following the first days of testimony in the civil rape trial against former President Donald Trump brought by author and columnist E. Jean Carroll, the former president's campaign website linked to an article by far-right blogger Jim Hoft purporting to show proof that Carroll was never raped, and claiming that she was actually a sexual harasser herself.

"ICYMI: 'Trump Rape Accuser Admitted to Sexually Harassing Roger Ailes — Told Him He Was Her 'Future Husband''" the website wrote, providing a link to the original article at Hoft's "Gateway Pundit."

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan warned Trump's lawyers about comments the former president had made on social media regarding the case. The judge said that any further statements could result in "a new source of potential liability."

Hoft's article cites a Vanity Fair interview Carroll gave in 2019, about her experience with men generally and also about the alleged assault by Trump in a department store dressing room in the late 1990s. Hoft also alleges that Carroll "admits" she was never raped — but she never said that. Rather, in the interview, she said she didn't like to use the term "rape" to describe her assault for fear of it being "filled with sexual imagery" and "fantasy connotations" among some people.

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Hoft, who is nicknamed "The Dumbest Man on the Internet" by his critics, has ginned up a series of controversies over the years with sloppy reporting and conspiracy theories at his website, at one point stirring up an internal dispute within pro-Trump circles for claiming with no evidence that far-right streamer Tim "Baked Alaska" Gionet, who participated in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, was actually an undercover federal agent.

Carroll is suing Trump for both battery and defamation, alleging that the attack left her too traumatized to have romantic relationships, and that he defamed her and cost her career opportunities by claiming her accusations were a hoax.

Experts have suggested that the trial is so far going poorly for the former president, with Trump apparently more willing to lose the case than taking the stand in his own defense and risk creating more embarrassment for himself.