Carol Martin Says Writer Told of Store Incident
An African American former New York news anchor confirmed this week that her friend E. Jean Carroll told her at the time that Donald Trump sexually assaulted Carroll in 1996 in a New York department store.
Carol Martin, the first African American female news anchor on WCBS-TV’s noon, 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. newscasts, told the New York Times that Carroll confided in her about the alleged assault in a kitchen conversation that took place within three days of the incident, which Trump denies took place.
“She doesn’t break down easily. There was none of that . . . that she started crying or anything, or nothing frantic . . . . It was like ‘I can’t believe this happened,’ ” Martin told Times reporter Megan Twohey.
Martin’s comments and those of another friend, Lisa Birnbach, author of “The Official Preppy Handbook,” were recorded for the Times’ public radio show “The Daily” and posted online as part of the article by Twohey, Jessica Bennett and Alexandra Alter.
“I said, ‘don’t tell anybody. I wouldn’t tell anybody,’ ” Martin told Twohey.
” ‘These traumas stay with you,’ Ms. Martin said. ‘I didn’t know what to do except listen,’ ” The Times story said.
“The three women didn’t speak about the incident again until Ms Carroll began preparing for her forthcoming book, they said. It became public last week when Ms. Carroll, in a New York magazine excerpt from the book, accused the president of sexually assaulting her years ago,” Twohey reported. “It was the most serious of multiple allegations women have made against him, all of which he has denied.”
Twohey also wrote, “Ms. Birnbach and Ms. Martin, who haven’t previously spoken publicly about Ms. Carroll’s account, say they are doing so now to bolster their friend, especially since she has been attacked in recent days by skeptics and some supporters of Mr. Trump. . . .”
Despite Twohey’s observation that Carroll’s is “the most serious of multiple allegations women have made against him,” the news media have been criticized for downplaying Carroll’s accusation.
“Despite the litany of claims against Trump, Carroll is only the second woman to publicly accuse him of rape,“ Jon Allsop wrote for the Columbia Journalism Review Monday, before the names of Carroll’s confidants were known.
“Her account is graphic and detailed; was corroborated by two friends who recall Carroll telling them about it at the time; and echoes what Trump told Billy Bush, in the Access Hollywood tape, about grabbing women ‘by the pussy.’ You’d think, then, that it would have been a much bigger story over the weekend. Many commentators were furious that it was not,” Allsop wrote.
In a Times story Monday, Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet acknowledged that “We were overly cautious.”
Twohey, Bennett and Alter wrote, “Ms. Carroll invited Ms. Birnbach and Ms. Martin to lunch last year and showed them the chapter depicting the encounter with Mr. Trump and the friends’ discussions about it. (Their names do not appear in the book.) In it, she wrote that she and Mr. Trump had recognized each other at Bergdorf’s,” the department store, “talked playfully about what gift he might buy for a woman, and ended up in the lingerie department, challenging each other to try on a lilac bodysuit. She remembered thinking it would make a great story.
“But in the dressing room, with no one nearby, Ms. Carroll said Mr. Trump pushed her against a wall, pulled down her tights and put his penis inside her. ‘It was violent, I fought, but didn’t think of it as …’ she trailed off, never saying ‘rape.’ ‘I have a hard time even saying that word,’ she said. . . .”
In the recorded excerpt of the interview, Carroll explains, “Every woman gets to choose her word. Every woman gets to choose how she describes it. . . . My word is fight. My word is not the victim word. I have not been raped. Something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”
Martin, 70, worked at WCBS from 1975 to 1995. Afterward, Twohey, Bennett and Alter wrote, Carroll and Martin both had shows on America’s Talking, the cable channel run by Roger Ailes, the late founder of Fox News Channel. A LinkedIn profile lists Martin as president of the New York area-based Flying Minds Productions, Inc.
Oliver Darcy and Marianne Garvey, CNN: Murdoch lieutenant ordered removal of New York Post story on Trump sexual assault allegation, sources say
Renée Graham, Boston Globe: If this nation cared about sexual assault, Trump would not be president
Connor Mannion, Mediaite: MSNBC’s Joy Reid Rips Media For Burying Latest Trump Sexual Assault Allegation
Tony Norman, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: To live above the law you must be honest (June 18)
Judy Woodruff with Emily Bazelon and Soraya Chemaly, “PBS NewsHour”: Why we often don’t believe women who report sexual assault (transcript and video)