E. Jean Carroll was “hyperventilating” when she called a friend minutes after former President Donald Trump allegedly raped her in 1996, the pal told jurors in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday.
Lisa Birnbach — a longtime close friend of the New York Magazine “Ask E. Jean” advice columnist — recalled how a “breathless, hyperventilating, [and] emotional” Carroll called to tell her Trump had allegedly sexually assaulted her inside a Bergdorf Goodman fitting room.
“Lisa, you’re not going to believe what happened to me,” Birnbach recounted Carroll telling her during the three- to four-minute call.
“Her voice was doing all kinds of things,” Birnbach testified of Carroll. “She might have been laughing. It sounded like she had a surge of adrenaline.”
Birnbach — who was feeding her young kids dinner when Carroll called — said, “I ducked out of the room and I whispered, ‘E. Jean, he raped you.’”
She told Carroll to go to the police, but her friend responded, “No, no, no. I don’t want to go to the police,” Birnbach testified.
“He raped you,” Birnbach recalled repeating. “I’ll take you to the police.”
But Carroll didn’t budge and instead swore Birnbach, a fellow writer who’s known her for over 30 years, to secrecy, the pal testified.
During the call, Carroll told her friend about bumping into the real estate mogul on her way out of the Fifth Avenue department store before he convinced her to help him shop for a gift, Birnbach testified.
Trump eventually led Carroll up to the lingerie section of the store, tossing a negligee at her and asking her to try it on, Birnbach recalled her pal saying on the call.
Carroll joked that he should try on the see-through one-piece, and Trump led her into an open fitting room — where he allegedly carried out the attack, Birnbach testified.
Birnbach admitted that she thought it was odd that Carroll decided to go to the lingerie section of the store with Trump, whom she described as a “staple of New York City tabloid life.”
“I was surprised that she did that,” Birnbach said. “I thought it was kind of nutty.”
Still, Birnbach said she didn’t think it was “dangerous” for Carroll to go into the fitting room with Trump, whom Birnbach had recently spent two days with at Mar-a-Lago for a Feb. 12, 1996, story she wrote about him in New York Magazine.
“I didn’t think it was dangerous because I had just spent a few days with him and he didn’t strike me as dangerous,” Birnbach testified.
After Carroll eventually went public with her claims against Trump in June 2019, Birnbach agreed to be identified by name as the person whom Carroll called right after the alleged incident.
Birnbach said that as a result of going public, she received “some pretty awful anti-Semiitic messages” online.
Birnbach told jurors that she wasn’t testifying against Trump for political reasons — as his team has claimed — but to vouch for her close friend.
“I am here because my friend, my good friend, who is a good person, told me something terrible that happened to her and as a result, she lost her employment and her life became very, very difficult,” Birnbach said.
“I’m here because I’m her friend and I want the world to know she is telling the truth.”
Carroll, 79, filed suit against Trump, 76, in November over the alleged rape. The lawsuit also accuses the 45th president of defaming Carroll when he publicly denied her allegations and claimed he didn’t know her.
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