NEW YORK — Donald Trump doesn’t want the jury at his upcoming civil rape trial to see or hear the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape — in which he quipped about molesting women — nor anything about his multiple sex crimes accusers.
In court papers filed late Thursday, Trump’s lawyers Alina Habba and Michael Madaio asked Manhattan Federal Court Judge Lewis Kaplan to bar E. Jean Carroll’s counsel from introducing the tape into evidence when the trial starts on April 25.
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,” Trump is heard telling former “Today” host Billy Bush in the 2005 clip. “Grab ’em by the p---y. You can do anything.”
A hot mic picked up the comments as Trump and Bush wisecracked about soap opera star Arianne Zucker before appearing in a segment with her. The leaked tape tanked Bush’s TV career. Trump was elected president a month later.
Lawyers for Carroll, who accused Trump of raping her inside a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Midtown in the mid-1990s, included the tape among a list of exhibits they plan to introduce as evidence at the trial.
Trump’s lawyers said they anticipate that Carroll wants to play the footage to jurors to show that Trump is “predisposed” to commit sexual assault.
The former president has denied the assault and knowing Carroll before she filed suit.
In response, Habba argued the “irrelevant and highly prejudicial” comments on the notorious tape “do not even tangentially relate” to Carroll’s claims.
During an October deposition in the case, Trump said his comment about famous people being able to grope women was “historically” true, based on a trend “over the last million years.”
“I guess that’s been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately,” Trump said.
“And you consider yourself to be a star?” Carroll’s lawyer asked.
“I think you can say that, yeah,” Trump said.
Trump’s lawyers also asked Kaplan to bar Carroll’s attorneys from calling Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds as witnesses. Both have accused him of sexual misconduct, which Trump denies.
In 2016, Stoynoff, a former reporter for People magazine, claimed Trump pushed her up against a wall at Mar-a-Lago during a December 2005 interview and forced his tongue down her throat. She said Trump came at her after a heavily pregnant Melania left the room and that he stopped when a butler walked in.
Leeds was among the first women to levy abuse accusations against Trump when he ran for president. She says he grabbed her breast and put his hand up her skirt while she was seated next to him on a flight to New York in the 1980s. Leeds was a traveling saleswoman for a paper company at the time and had been bumped up to first class.
In court papers filed Thursday, Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan argued Stoynoff and Leeds’ allegations are directly relevant to the case.
Kaplan said the testimony would speak to “Trump’s pattern of suddenly and without warning lunging at a woman, pushing his body against her, grabbing at her, and kissing her, in what constitutes a knowing and intentional sexual assault, and later categorically denying the allegations and declaring that the accuser was too ugly for him to have sexually assaulted her.”
Trump and Carroll’s lawyers have said they plan to call their clients as witnesses at the spring trial, which is expected to last from five to seven days. The court has yet to decide whether it will encompass two lawsuits Carroll has filed against Trump. That decision will hinge on a pending ruling by the D.C. Court of Appeals regarding whether Trump was acting in his presidential capacity when he called Carroll a liar in 2019, noting she “wasn’t my type.”
The lawsuits demand unspecified damages for sexual battery and defamation claims. They each center on Carroll’s allegations that Trump raped her inside a sixth-floor dressing room after they bumped into each other and he asked her to help pick out lingerie. She says he slandered her when he twice accused her of lying.
Earlier this week, Judge Kaplan, who will rule on Trump and Carroll’s requests about the “Access Hollywood” tape and his accusers testifying, rejected an 11th-hour request from the former president to submit a sample of his DNA. For three years Trump refused to provide a sample for comparison with a man’s genetic material recovered on a sleeve of the dress Carroll said she wore during the alleged assault.
Trump, who is running for president again, has also requested Judge Kaplan bar Carroll’s lawyers from introducing any evidence about emotional harm she suffered because of the alleged incident.
Carroll, 79, contends she never dated again after Trump assaulted her. Her attorneys are expected to call friends she confided in about the assault, Lisa Birnbach and Carol Martin, who told her not to speak out for fear of Trump’s retribution.
