Tuesday May 02, 2023 · 4:57 PM PDT
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The true character of the man who 74 million Americans voted for in 2020 is once again coming into sharp focus, as Jessica Leeds took the stand in support of E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of lying about her allegations that he raped her.
The year was 1979 or 1980. Leeds was on a Braniff flight returning to New York City from Dallas, Texas. She had been sitting in coach when she had the good fortune to be offered an upgrade to first class. She accepted, moved up the aisle, and sat down. Perched at the window next to her was one Donald John Trump. They made small talk, although Ms. Leeds didn’t know who Trump was. After both were served a meal, Trump allegedly began groping her.
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As reported by Victoria Bekiempis, writing for
New York Magazine:
When Jessica Leeds ran into Donald Trump at a charity gala in the early 1980s, he didn’t say much, but his few words were searing.
“‘I remember you,’” Leeds recalled him saying. “‘You’re that cunt from the airplane.’”
Leeds’s recollection was delivered as she was testifying Tuesday afternoon
in E. Jean Carroll’s civil rape trial against Trump. The former saleswoman and stockbroker, now 81, described how a routine flight some five decades ago turned into an airborne house-of-horrors at Trump’s hands.
Carroll, writing for
The Atlantic in the run up to the 2020 election, interviewed other women who say they were assaulted or harassed by Trump. Leeds was one such woman, and related the following at that time about the incident:
“I introduce myself,” Jessica says, “and he is perfectly reasonable when I first sit down. He’s blond, tall—you know, a good-size man—but I don’t remember being overwhelmed by his looks. Then we take off, and they serve a wonderful meal with real linen and real food. And you know? It is delightful. Really delightful. What do we talk about? We talk about him. He doesn’t ask me any personal questions. I know very few men who ever ask personal questions. They don’t want to know the answers. And I have my book. And he has nothing to read, and when they come and pick up the trays and everything, within a short amount of time—all of a sudden—he is on me.”
According to Bekiempis’ reporting, Leeds’ testimony during Tuesday’s trial proceedings reiterated, in all pertinent respects, what she had told Carroll for her 2020 interview, which was conducted on Zoom.
As Carroll recounted in
The Atlantic:
“It’s like he’s got four extra hands,” Jessica says. “He’s grabbing my breasts. He’s trying to kiss me. I’m trying to get his hands off me. And this struggle”—the very data on the Zoom screen seems to shiver as Jessica recalls the scene—“it’s when he starts putting his hand up my skirt that I get a jolt of strength and manage to wiggle out of the seat. I grab my purse and storm to the back of the plane.”
Mocking the prior aggressive questioning of Carroll by Trump attorney Joe Tacopina, Carroll’s counsel, Mike Ferrara, asked Leeds whether she screamed. She replied that she did not, although she believes she may have called Trump “a name.”
RELATED STORY: Trump accuser says she was a 'member of the silent generation' that didn't report rape
Leeds’ next encounter with Trump came about two years later, when she was working at a benefit for the Humane Society in New York City. Trump walked up with his wife Ivana, who Leeds recalls was pregnant at the time. According to Leeds, that’s when Trump called her the “c-word,” saying he remembered her.
Tacopina apparently assumed the jury would never believe Trump would ever say such a thing in front of his pregnant wife. As Bekiempis reports:
Trump attorney Joe Tacopina grilled Leeds on this second encounter, suggesting that Trump would have been unlikely to use such language in front of Ivana. Did Trump, “standing there next to his pregnant wife,” say “you’re that cunt from the airplane?”
“Correct,” Leeds said.
It’s not clear from Bekiempis’ account whether anyone in the courtroom appeared surprised.
Are you?
