US PRESIDENT DONALD Trump has denied allegations that he sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll in a New York department store, saying the columnist is not his “type”.
Carroll claimed that an encounter with Trump at Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996 turned violent after he pushed her up against a dressing room wall, unzipped his trousers and forced himself on her.
Carroll said that, in a “colossal struggle”, she pushed him off and ran from the store.
However, Trump told The Hill that Carroll is “totally lying” about the accusation, which he also denied previously.
“I’ll say it with great respect: number one, she’s not my type; number two, it never happened,” Trump told The Hill in an interview at the White House.
He previously told reporters that he had never met Carroll and accused her of lying.
”I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her,” he said. “She is – it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that.”
The allegation against Trump is included in Carroll’s upcoming book about the “hideous men”, whom the Elle magazine columnist says she has encountered throughout her life.
Last night, she told CNN that she’s glad Trump doesn’t consider her his type. “I love that,” she said. “I’m so glad I am not his type.”
Carroll said there were no attendants in the dressing room area at the time of the alleged assault and she did not file a report with the New York Police Department.
“I wanted to forget it,” she said. “I thought A, my fault. B, I was stupid. C, I didn’t think of it … as rape. I thought of it as a violent incident. I thought of it as a fight.”
The “not my type” remark isn’t the first time Trump has disparaged one of his accusers.
In 2016, after a former magazine writer accused Trump of assaulting her in 2005, he responded: “She lies! Look at her, I don’t think so.”
And when another woman claimed Trump groped her on an airplane in the early 1980s, he said, “Believe me — she would not be my first choice.”
With reporting from Associated Press.
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