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Palestinian Boys Allege Sexual Assault, Torture by Israeli Jailers
"We are children," said one teen. "What have we done?"
Aug 24, 2025
Palestinian teenagers kidnapped and imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces during the genocidal war on Gaza accused their jailers of torturing and sexually assaulting them in a report published Saturday by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"They took me from the aid distribution site and transferred me to a hospital in Rafah, where I was interrogated for an hour," one 16-year-old boy identified by his first name Sami, who was abducted on June 29, told ABC. "They stripped me and conducted a body search. Then, they loaded me into a jeep and transported me to a prison in Israel."
"During the interrogations, they tortured us—handcuffing us, beating us with sticks, and using electric shocks," the teen continued. "They did countless things to break us."
"I was tortured for a week until I lost all sense of time and awareness," Sami said. "They put me in a one-square-meter cell, where I spent the entire week. I never saw daylight, never stepped outside. They only came to deliver food."
"They asked if I knew anyone from Hamas, and whether I had crossed over on October 7," Sami recounted. "They kept pressing me about who I knew and who I had seen. I told them I was just walking down the street—I didn't know anything."
"They would beat me. Each person that talked to me would beat me," the teen alleged. "I was handcuffed, blindfolded, and they put electricity in my legs."
Mahmoud, age 17, said that his Israeli abductors "began hurling insults, cursing at us, and accusing us of being with Hamas."
"They stripped us of our clothes and took us to Kerem Shalom, completely naked, with nothing," he continued. "There, the beatings and torture began."
"The Israeli women soldiers beat us. They stripped us and 'played' here, and here, and there," Mahmoud said, indicating his genitals. "They beat us with sticks. Got on us while we were lying on the ground. We were handcuffed like that and naked."
Mahmoud said his captors wanted to humiliate him and other teenage boys in custody, accusing the troops of taking nude photos of them and sending female soldiers to mock and touch his body—an especially shameful ordeal for Muslims.
"When I was released from prison, I had a breakdown," Mahmoud said. "I felt mentally exhausted and deeply disgusted. What I witnessed—no one should ever have to see."
"I was tortured, we are children," he added. "What have we done?"
ABC published photographs showing signs of torture on the teens' bodies, including from shackling.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) categorically rejected the teens' accusations, saying that "this includes allegations of electric shocks during interrogations, strip-searching detainees for humiliation purposes, or sexual assaults."
However, there have been numerous documented cases of such abuse, most notably at the notorious Sde Teiman torture prison. Israeli physicians who served at Sde Teiman have described widespread severe injuries caused by 24-hour shackling of hands and feet that sometimes required amputations.
Palestinians taken by Israeli forces have described being raped and sexually assaulted by male and female soldiers, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, soaked with cold water, denied food and water, deprived of sleep, and blasted with loud music. Dozens of detainees have died in Israeli custody, including one who died after allegedly being sodomized with an electric baton.
Last year, nine IDF reservists were arrested for allegedly gang-raping a Sde Teiman prisoner, who suffered severe internal injuries in the attack, which was caught on video. Far-right Israelis including government officials subsequently stormed the facility in a bid to free the reservists, and Israeli leaders including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded a probe of the video—not to seek justice for the victim, but rather to find and punish whoever leaked it.
Survivors of Israeli abuse have also accused their jailers of bringing Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowing them to watch and record prisoners being tortured.
Gazan doctor Khaled al-Sir told ABC that Sami and Mahmoud's accounts mirrored his own abuse at the hands of Israeli soldiers who imprisoned him for six months last year.
"I witnessed many prisoners who were sexually assaulted using batons in their buttholes and also using the pepper spray over their private parts," al-Sir alleged, adding that there was an area of Sde Teiman that guards called the "hell section," where abuse was particularly severe.
A pair of recent United Nations reports detailed sexual violence, including reproductive and gender-based crimes, perpetrated by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians. The UN has also reported rape and other sexual violence committed by Hamas militants against Israelis during the October 7, 2023 attack and against hostages kidnapped that day.
In January, Israel blocked a request from UN sex crimes experts to probe alleged sexual violence perpetrated by Hamas fighters during the October 7, 2023 attack, reportedly to avoid scrutiny of rapes and other abuses allegedly committed by Israeli forces against imprisoned Palestinians.
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'Shame Must Change Sides': Thousands March in France Against Sexual Violence
The protests were organized in support of Gisèle Pélicot, who has become a symbol of feminist defiance in the country when she chose to make the rape trial of her husband and 50 other men public.
Sep 14, 2024
Thousands of people took to the streets in 30 French cities and Brussels on Saturday to protest rape and sexist violence and to support Gisèle Pélicot, a woman in her early 70s whose husband of 50 years is on trial for drugging her periodically and inviting dozens of men into their home to rape her while she was unconscious.
Pélicot has become a symbol of the fight against sexual violence in France when she decided to make the trial of her husband and 50 other men public to ensure that "no woman suffers this."
"We are all Gisèle," protesters chanted in Paris, according to Le Monde. "Rapist we see you, victim we believe you."
The crime was discovered when her now ex-husband Dominique, a 71 year old who has plead guilty to drugging and raping his wife, was caught taking photos up the skirts of women in 2020. As part of that investigation, police uncovered a USB drive with a file labeled "abuse," which included more than 20,000 photos and videos of the attacks on his wife that were taken over a nine-year period. There was evidence that he had recruited more than 80 men to participate via an online forum. Police identified and charged 50 of the participants.
At the trial, which began September 2 and is expected to last four months, Pélicot described her harrowing experience. As The Guardian reported:
"My world fell apart. For me, everything was falling apart. Everything I had built up over 50 years."
She said she had barely recognized herself in the images, saying she was motionless. "I was sacrificed on the altar of vice," she said. "They regarded me like a rag doll, like a garbage bag."
"When you see that woman drugged, mistreated, a dead person on a bed—of course the body is not cold, it's warm, but it's as if I'm dead." She told the court rape was not a strong enough word, it was torture.
Saturday's protests were called by feminist groups in France.
"We thank her a thousand times for her enormous courage," Fatima Benomar of the feminist group "Coudes a Coudes" association told BFM TV.
34-year-old Justine Imbert, who attended a 200-strong march in Marseilles with her six-year-old daughter, told Le Monde, "It must have taken huge courage, but it was essential," for Pélicot to make the trial public.
"It allows people to see the faces of her husband and all the others, to see they are not outcasts but 'good fathers,'" Imbert said.
"I am here to support Gisele and all women as there are many Giseles, too many Giseles."
The men accused in the trial include a member of the local government, a civil servant, a journalist, a former police officer, a prison guard, and more than one nurse.
"It's shocking… because we see that the [men on trial] are a bit like Mr Everyman. It goes against the idea that there is only one type of rapist," 21-year-old photographer Pedro Campos said, according to The Guardian.
Martine Ragon, 74, told journalists she had come to the demonstration in Marseilles to "denounce rape culture."
"This well-publicized trial will allow people to speak out about it, to raise awareness," Ragon said.
Anna Toumazoff, who helped organize the protest in Paris that brought around 700 people to the Place de la Republique, also emphasized the need to talk about "rape culture."
"After seven years of MeToo, we know that there is not a special type of victim. We are also collectively realizing that there is no special type of a rapist," Toumazoff told The Associated Press.
Magali Lafourcade, a magistrate and secretary general of the National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, told AP that Pélicot's sharing of her story was important because 90% of women who are raped in France do not press charges and 80% of the cases that are brought forward are dropped.
Lou Salome Patouillard, a 41-year-old artist, who joined the demonstration in Marseilles, told Reuters, "I am here to support Gisele and all women as there are many Giseles, too many Giseles."
During the trial, Pélicot said that she began to have problems with her memory during the period when her husband was repeatedly drugging her. When she told her husband she was afraid she had Alzheimer's, he scheduled her a doctor's appointment. During the investigation, it was revealed that she had contracted multiple sexually transmitted diseases.
Through her lawyer, Stephane Babonneau, Pélicot explained her decision to make the trial public.
"It's a way of saying... shame must change sides," Babonneau said at the start of the trial, words that have been taken up as a rallying cry by France's feminist movement.
When supporters unfurled a banner from the Marseilles court building on Saturday, that is what it said: "Shame must change sides."
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Where Is the Mass Outrage Over Israel’s Abu Ghraib?
The silence of Western media and politicians in response to revelations of systematic abuses of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody amounts to complicity.
Aug 10, 2024
It’s been just over 20 years since CBS News published the sobering photographs that proved the U.S. Army was carrying out unspeakable crimes against Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison.
Rape. Degradation. Homicide. Torture, both psychological and physical. Sexual humiliation.
The revelations of U.S. barbarity were greeted with horror around the world and played a major role in turning opinion against the Iraq War.
In recent days, it has become all too clear that something comparable to Abu Ghraib—and very possibly worse—has been taking place in Israeli prisons since October 7 when the war on Gaza broke out.
Looking terrified as he spoke, he told us of his disbelief that “peaceful people with no power can be starved, tortured, and killed” in the 21st century, with no protection, legal representation, or international outrage.
This week, appalling leaked video footage captured Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee, just as a report from the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem highlighted the state’s policy of systematic prisoner abuse and torture since the start of the war.
The report, based on interviews with 55 Palestinians detained since the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, is distressing to read. It provides evidence of degrading treatment, arbitrary beatings, and sleep deprivation, as well as the “repeated use of sexual violence, in varying degrees of severity.”
Fadi Baker, 25, recollects that Israeli forces “put cigarettes out in my mouth and on my body. They put clamps on my testicles that were attached to something heavy. It went on like that for a full day. My testicles swelled up and my left ear bled.”
He said interrogators asked him about Hamas leaders and people he didn’t know and then beat him. “Then they put me back in the freezing room with the loud disco music, and again left me there, naked, for two days.”
B’Tselem headlined its report: “Welcome to hell.”
Normalizing Rape
While Israeli authorities have denied such accounts, the analysis comes just days after nine soldiers were arrested in relation to the rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman detention facility. The victim reportedly suffered a severe injury to his anus, a ruptured bowel, lung damage, and broken ribs.
In addition, last month the United Nations Human Rights office published a report that found shocking abuses in Israeli military facilities and prisons, where at least 53 Palestinians have died since October 7.
How have Western politicians remained silent on these horrors? Where is the mass public outrage?
This collective omerta from politicians and the media about Israel’s monstrous conduct is hard to comprehend, given that we are talking about systematic war crimes committed on a horrifying scale by a country already under investigation at the International Court of Justice for potential genocide.
It seems Israeli leaders have been successful in their campaign to normalize rape and other abuses against Palestinian prisoners. After the arrest of the nine soldiers at Sde Teiman, far-right protesters who stormed the facility were joined by several Knesset members. Justice Minister Yariv Levin said he was “shocked to see harsh pictures of soldiers being arrested,” adding that it was “impossible to accept.”
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir went even further: “I recommend the defence minister, the [Israeli army] chief and the military authorities to… learn from the prison service—light treatment of terrorists is over. Soldiers need to have our full support.”
Energy Minister Eli Cohen also came out in strong support of the “reservists who do holy work and guard the despicable Hamas terrorists,” adding, “We should all embrace them and salute them, certainly not interrogate them and humiliate them.”
The real goal of the arrests might simply have been to present the illusion that Israel is taking action internally against such horrors, in a bid to avoid international war crimes trials at The Hague. According to a recent report from Ynet, senior Israeli legal officials said: “It’s better that we investigate. Internal investigations save international external investigations.”
In a Haaretz article late last month, law professor Orit Kamir referenced legislation that was passed a year ago to allow for increased punishment in cases of Palestinians who sexually assault Jewish women. One year on, portions of the Israeli establishment “are no longer satisfied with doubling punishment… The state law amendment a year ago was only the trailer, when they were still hesitant and restrained,” she wrote.
“Now the sting is out of the bag, and they renounce the rule of law of the country altogether, and demand to apply the ancient law of revenge: an eye for an eye and rape for rape. Those who were arrested by the [Israeli army] as a suspect in connection with the 7 October atrocities were, according to their opinion, to be raped in custody by Jewish Israeli soldiers.”
Such abuses are becoming mainstream. There is ample evidence. Where is the broad global condemnation?
Western Complicity
The accounts cited by B’Tselem are consistent with many other reports that have filtered out from Israeli prisons over the last 10 months.
Four weeks ago, we interviewed Muazzaz Abayat in his hospital bed in Bethlehem after his release from jail, following nine months of administrative detention. Abayat, who had lost more than half his body weight in jail, told us that throughout his imprisonment, he was beaten, abused, tortured, starved, and deprived of water.
He said that his case was not exceptional—every other Palestinian prisoner faces the same treatment. His unimaginable suffering was sculpted in his face. Abayat compared the Negev prison where he had been held to the notorious U.S. facilities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
These are the signs of a very sick society indeed—one that has passed through an invisible barrier into savagery. There are no red lines, no respect for international law, and no accountability.
He was never charged with any crime. Looking terrified as he spoke, he told us of his disbelief that “peaceful people with no power can be starved, tortured, and killed” in the 21st century, with no protection, legal representation, or international outrage.
There is still no international outcry. Incredibly, there has not even been comment. Despite the tsunami of evidence in recent days, there has been nothing from Western leaders. Nothing from U.S. President Joe Biden or his vice president, Kamala Harris. Silence from Keir Starmer, the British prime minister who threw his weight behind Israel’s policy of collective punishment in Gaza.
Nor have we heard from the former prime minister, Rishi Sunak, who had previously pledged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu“unequivocal” support. The British media—with the honorable exception of The Guardian, which gave full coverage to the B’Tselem report—has been largely silent.
This collective omerta from politicians and the media about Israel’s monstrous conduct is hard to comprehend, given that we are talking about systematic war crimes committed on a horrifying scale by a country already under investigation at the International Court of Justice for potential genocide.
Their silence amounts to complicity. As for Israel, the majority of the political and media classes do not appear to think there is much wrong in the torture and abuse of prisoners, with some ministers actively defending the abusers.
During a recent televised debate, one of the panellists suggested it should be legal to use rape as a form of torture. In any other country, such vile comments would be major news.
These are the signs of a very sick society indeed—one that has passed through an invisible barrier into savagery. There are no red lines, no respect for international law, and no accountability. The silence of the West shows that we, too, have entered the same nightmare universe as Ben Gvir and Netanyahu.
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Far-Right Israelis Mob Bases After Soldiers Arrested for Allegedly Raping Palestinian
Several Israeli lawmakers and one minister took part in the attempt to free the nine reservists, who were hailed as heroes by multiple Cabinet members.
Jul 30, 2024
Far-right Israelis including government officials stormed two military bases late on Monday, sparking clashes with troops and police over the arrest of Israel Defense Forces reservists who allegedly gang-raped a Palestinian prisoner.
Hundreds of protesters broke into the notorious Sde Teiman base in the Negev Desert in an attempt to stop the detention of nine reserve troops accused of sodomizing a Palestinian jailed there.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the victim is hospitalized with severe injuries and is unable to walk.
The nine suspects were then taken to the Beit Lid army base, which was also mobbed by at least dozens of demonstrators.
Base invaders included armed and masked members of Force 100, the military unit tasked with guarding prisoners at Sde Teiman. One of the nine arrested soldiers is reportedly a major in Force 100.
High-ranking Israeli government officials also took part in Monday's riots, including Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu of the Otzma Yehudit, or Jewish Power, party. Members of the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, including Yitzhak Kroizer and Limor Son Har-Melech (Otzma Yehudit), Zvi Sukkot (Religious Zionism), and Tally Gotliv (Likud), were also present.
"The military advocate general is a criminal. The people of Israel will fight against enemies from outside and enemies from within," Har-Melech said during the protest.
Journalists including a woman who works for the state broadcaster Kan said they were attacked while covering the riot.
Yair Lapid (Yesh Atid), the Israeli opposition leader, called for the arrest and imprisonment of Knesset members who took part in invasions.
"This is not a riot, this is an attempted coup by an armed militia against a weak prime minister who is unable to control his government," Lapid said on social media.
"We are not on the brink of the abyss, we are in the abyss. All red lines were crossed today," he added. "MKs and ministers who participate in the invasion of violent militias into military bases are a message to the state of Israel: They are done with democracy, they are done with the rule of law."
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (Likud) urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud) to investigate allegations that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir (Otzma Yehudit) thwarted police intervention against the rioters.
"Backing and active participation of elected officials in riots at army bases, while issuing harsh statements against senior army officers, is a severe and extremely dangerous phenomenon that harms security, social cohesiveness, and Israel's international reputation," Gallant said.
Netanyahu said he "strongly condemns the break-in."
Ben-Gvir, on the other hand, condemned what he called the "shameful" detention of the nine soldiers, whom he described as "our best heroes."
He acknowledged that conditions inside Israeli prisons "have indeed worsened," adding, "I am proud of that."
Echoing Ben-Gvir, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism) called the nine detained reservists "heroic warriors."
In a heated Knesset exchange, Ahmad Tibi of the Arab Movement for Renewal party asked Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky if raping Palestinian prisoners is "legitimate."
"Yes! If he is a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him!" Milwidsky thundered, referring to an elite Hamas commando unit.
MK Ahmad Tibi (TA'AL): To insert a stick in a person's rectum, is that legitimate???
MK Hanoch Milwidsky (Likud): Yes! If he is a Nukhba everything is legitimate to do him!
Some of you have probably already heard about the events in Sde Teiman concentration camp today: MPs came… pic.twitter.com/JynQZOqnDH
— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) July 29, 2024
Erez Tadmor, a former speechwriter for Netanyahu,
claimed that Sde Teiman prisoners may have raped themselves.
The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel denounced the alleged rape of the Palestinian prisoner in Sde Teiman.
"Since the beginning of the war, we claimed that the Sde Teiman was operating as an 'ex-territory', and the soldiers stationed there were acting outside any law—first in their treatment of detainees, and now towards military law enforcement agents," the group said.
"Instead of absolute condemnation, some Israeli far-right leaders have rallied to support the suspects of abuse, which is emblematic of the root causes that enable such abuse to happen in the first place," the group added.
Orit Sulitzeanu, executive director of the Association of Rape Crises Centers in Israel, told Haaretz she is "shocked" by the Sde Teiman rape allegation.
"There will never be any circumstances that would justify the use of this sickening practice, not even against the worst of our enemies," he said. "Sexual harm and sexual abuse are serious crimes and we must not remain silent when they happen."
Former prisoners including children and Israeli whistleblowers at Sde Teiman—often called "Israel's Guantánamo Bay"—have described rampant torture and abuse at the facility, which is used to imprison Palestinians captured in the Gaza Strip. According to their testimonies, prisoners have been raped, electrocuted, mauled by dogs, burned with cigarettes, severely beaten, starved, and subjected to 24-hour shackling sometimes leading to amputations.
The New York Times reported last month that one former Sde Teiman prisoner said he was forced to "sit on something like a hot metal stick and it felt like fire," and that another detainee "died after they put the electric stick" up his anus.
IDF officials told Haaretz last month that the IDF is investigating the in-custody deaths of dozens of detainees, including 36 who died or were killed at Sde Teiman since October.
Palestinians formerly held at Sde Teiman said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture.
On Tuesday, Israel's High Court of Justice said it will hold a second hearing on August 7 regarding a petition seeking to close Sde Teiman over alleged torture and abuse committed there, The Times of Israel reported.
Also on Tuesday in a separate case from the nine arrests, an IDF reservist identified as Staff Sgt. Yisrael Zakaria Hajbi was indicted for allegedly using "severe violence against the detainees he was entrusted with guarding" at Sde Teiman and filming the abuse.
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Jury in Civil Case Finds Trump Sexually Abused, Defamed E. Jean Carroll
One prominent trial attorney called on New York lawmakers to "extend the CRIMINAL statute of limitations for sex crimes so Trump can be criminally prosecuted for the sexual abuse that this civil jury found Trump committed."
May 09, 2023
A civil jury in New York City on Tuesday found former U.S. President Donald Trump civilly liable for sexually abusing and defaming—but not raping—journalist E. Jean Carroll and awarded her $5 million in damages.
After two weeks of testimony and just under three hours of deliberation, the six-man, three-woman jury awarded Carroll $2 million in compensatory damages and $20,000 in punitive damages for sexual battery, and $1 million in compensatory damages, $1.7 million for reputational repair, and $280,000 in punitive damages for defamation.
Carroll alleged that Trump—a 2024 Republican presidential candidate—raped her in a dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Midtown Manhattan in 1996 and then defamed her when he denied the accusation.
In denying the assault, Trump claimed to never have met Carroll, whom he called "mentally sick" and a "whack job" who is "not my type" in "any way, shape, or form."
The Associated Press reports:
The trial revisited the lightning-rod topic of Trump's conduct toward women.
Carroll gave multiple days of frank, occasionally emotional testimony, buttressed by two friends who told jurors she reported the alleged attack to them in the moments and day afterward.
Jurors also heard from Jessica Leeds, a former stockbroker who testified that Trump abruptly groped her against her will on an airplane in the 1970s, and from Natasha Stoynoff, a writer who said Trump forcibly kissed her against her will while she was interviewing him for a 2005 article.
Carroll smiled as the verdict was read and as she walked out of the Manhattan Federal Courthouse on Tuesday.
Trump—who did not appear at the trial—wrote on his Truth social media platform: "I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS. THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE—A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!"
Joe Tacopina, Trump's attorney, called the verdict "strange" and vowed to appeal.
"Obviously, [Trump is] firm in his belief, as many people are, that he cannot get a fair trial in New York City based on the jury pool, and I think one could argue that's probably an accurate assessment based on what happened today," Tacopina said during a press conference outside the courthouse.
More than two dozen women and a 13-year-old girl have accused Trump of sexual misconduct, including rape and assault.
One month before the 2016 presidential election, a 2005 recording of Trump telling "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush that "when you're a star," women let you "do anything" to them," including "grab 'em by the pussy" surfaced.
Asked during deposition by Carroll's lawyers if he believes the premise of his "Access Hollywood" comments—that powerful men could sexually assault women with impunity—is true, Trump said: "If you look over the last million years, I guess that's been largely true. Not always, but largely true. Unfortunately or fortunately."
Trial attorney Lisa Bloom called on the New York Legislature to "extend the CRIMINAL statute of limitations for sex crimes so Trump can be criminally prosecuted for the sexual abuse that this civil jury found Trump committed."
Last May, Democratic New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act, allowing survivors of sexual assault that occurred when they were older than 18 to sue their abusers—regardless of when the abuse occurred—during a one-year period.
Tuesday's verdict comes just over a month after Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts involving alleged hush money payments during the 2016 election in bids to cover up sex scandals, including $130,000 given to porn star Stormy Daniels and $30,000 payment to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about a child Trump had out of wedlock.
Rights defenders welcomed the jury's verdict.
"We are grateful to E. Jean Carroll for sharing her truth. We are in solidarity with her and survivors of sexual violence," UltraViolet tweeted.
"We know that sexual violence and rape culture is all around us, often perpetuated or carried out by those in positions of power. E. Jean Carroll is one of over 20 women who have come forward with stories of sexual assault by Donald Trump," the group added.
UltraViolet called on CNN to cancel a planned Trump town hall.
"When media outlets like CNN give Trump a platform, they do a disservice to all their viewers," the group wrote. "Contrary to the network's excuses, hosting a town hall with Trump isn't about hearing 'both sides.' It's a brazen ploy to seize ratings."
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Federal Judge Denies Motion to Substitute DOJ for Trump in Rape Accuser's Defamation Suit
"President Trump defamed our client because she was brave enough to reveal that he had sexually assaulted her, and that brutal, personal attack cannot be attributed to the office of the president," a lawyer for E. Jean Carroll said.
Oct 27, 2020
A federal judge on Tuesday denied a Justice Department motion to take over President Donald Trump's legal defense in the defamation lawsuit of E. Jean Carroll, who accused the president of raping her in the 1990s.
"When Donald Trump called me a liar and denied that he had ever met me, he was not speaking on behalf of the United States. I am happy that Judge Kaplan recognized these basic truths."
--E. Jean Carroll
In a highly unusual move, the DOJ had tried to intervene in the case of Carroll, a journalist who last June joined the over two dozen women who have now accused Trump of assault, molestation, or harassment. Had it been successful, the DOJ would have substituted itself as the defendant in the case, and since the federal government cannot be sued for defamation, the suit would have been effectively terminated.
However, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan denied the government's motion, arguing in a 61-page ruling (pdf) that Trump "is not an 'employee of the Government,' as Congress defined that term," and that the DOJ's assertion that the defamation suit is against the United States is invalid.
"The undisputed facts demonstrate that President Trump was not acting in furtherance of any duties owed to any arguable employer when he made the statements at issue," wrote Kaplan. "His comments concerned an alleged sexual assault that took place several decades before he took office, and the allegations have no relationship to the official business of the United States."
"To conclude otherwise would require the court to adopt a view that virtually everything the president does is within the public interest by virtue of his office," Kaplan asserted.
"No one even arguably directed or controlled President Trump when he commented on the plaintiff's accusation, which had nothing to do with the official business of government, that he raped her decades before he took office," Kaplan added.
Kaplan's opinion allows Carroll to proceed with her suit against the president. Roberta Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, welcomed the judge's ruling.
"The simple truth is that President Trump defamed our client because she was brave enough to reveal that he had sexually assaulted her, and that brutal, personal attack cannot be attributed to the office of the president," the attorney for Carroll said in a statement on Tuesday.
Carroll also celebrated the decision, saying in a statement that "when Donald Trump called me a liar and denied that he had ever met me, he was not speaking on behalf of the United States. I am happy that Judge Kaplan recognized these basic truths."
Last June, Carroll claimed Trump raped her in a dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996. Trump responded to the accusation by denying he had ever met Carroll, and saying that she wasn't his "type."
"She is trying to sell a new book that should indicate her motivation," Trump said of his accuser. "It should be sold in the fiction section."
Carroll then sued Trump last November, arguing that his denials amounted to libel because of the damage they caused her reputation. In August a New York state court ruled the suit could proceed, which led to the DOJ's attempt to substitute itself for Trump going forward.
To date, at least 26 women have accused Trump--who infamously boasted of sexually assaulting women with impunity in a recording released a month before the 2016 election--of sexual assault or harrassment.
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Using DOJ 'to Crush a Victim,' Barr Claims Trump Cannot Be Sued for Denying E. Jean Carroll's Rape Accusation
"There is not a single person in the United States—not the president and not anyone else—whose job description includes slandering women they sexually assaulted," Carroll's lawyers said.
Oct 20, 2020
In Attorney General Bill Barr's latest attempt to help President Donald Trump avoid accountability for an alleged rape he is accused of committing in the 1990s, Barr on Monday argued in court filings that when the president denied columnist E. Jean Carroll's accusation last year, he was acting not on behalf of his own interests but in his capacity as a public servant representing the people of the United States.
"Given the president's position in our constitutional structure, his role in communicating with the public is especially significant," wrote Justice Department lawyers, who last month at Barr's direction replaced Trump's personal legal team to represent the president in the case, in a highly unusual move. "The president's statements fall within the scope of his employment for multiple reasons."
The statements the government lawyers were referring to include Trump's claim that Carroll was "not [his] type," that he had never met her despite photographic evidence to the contrary, and that she was a liar who was trying to sell books by accusing him of raping her in a department store more than two decades ago, long before Trump's political career began.
"There is not a single person in the United States--not the president and not anyone else--whose job description includes slandering women they sexually assaulted," Carroll's attorneys wrote in response to the DOJ's claim on Monday.
Carroll, who sued Trump for defamation in a New York state court following his remarks, tweeted that she and her legal team are planning to argue in court that Trump's denial was "not an official act."
The DOJ lawyers' claim comes a month after Barr intervened in Carroll's case against Trump, both by replacing the president's legal representation and by attempting to transfer the lawsuit from the state court to a federal district court. Both moves suggest the DOJ aims to have the case treated as one that was filed against a government employee who is immune from defamation lawsuits, in order to have Carroll's case dismissed.
Former federal prosecutor and NBC legal analyst Glenn Kirschner tweeted that Barr's latest action goes against the department's responsibility to work "on behalf of victims."
"Bill Barr is trying to use the DOJ to crush a victim," Kirschner said.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden last week criticized the president for using the DOJ as his "own law firm" to gain the upper hand in his legal troubles.
"'I'm being sued because a woman's accusing me of rape. Represent me. Represent me,'" Mr. Biden said in imitation of the president. "What's that all about?"
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Barr Slammed for Acting as 'Personal Henchman' of Trump as DOJ in Suit Filed by Rape Accuser
"By putting the DOJ to work defending him over conduct that has nothing to do with his official capacity, Trump has taken another giant step toward full-blown authoritarianism."
Sep 09, 2020
Democratic lawmakers and legal experts accused Attorney General William Barr of unethically acting as President Donald Trump's "personal henchman" after the Justice Department on Tuesday moved to take over the president's defense team in a defamation case brought by journalist and author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s.
"Today's actions demonstrate that Trump will do everything possible to block discovery from going forward in my case before the upcoming election to try to prevent a jury from ever deciding which one of us is lying."
--E. Jean Carroll
In a claim that baffled and alarmed observers, Justice Department lawyers said in new court filings that the federal government's intervention in the case is justified because Trump was acting in "within the scope" of his official capacity as president when he accused Carroll of lying about the rape.
Robbie Kaplan, Carroll's attorney, called the Justice Department's argument "shocking" in a statement late Tuesday, saying it "offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen."
As a result of a court decision last month, Kaplan noted, "Trump was soon going to be required to produce documents, provide a DNA sample, and sit for a deposition."
"Realizing that there was no valid basis to appeal that decision in New York courts, on the very day that he would have been required to appeal, Trump instead enlisted the U.S. Department of Justice to replace his private lawyers," Kaplan continued. "Trump's effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent, and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out."
Carroll echoed her lawyer in a statement of her own on Tuesday, saying, "Today's actions demonstrate that Trump will do everything possible, including using the full powers of the federal government, to block discovery from going forward in my case before the upcoming election to try to prevent a jury from ever deciding which one of us is lying."
The Justice Department cited the Federal Tort Claims Act in its push to replace Trump's private defense team with government lawyers and move the defamation lawsuit, filed last November, from state to federal court.
"Though the law gives employees of the federal government immunity from most defamation lawsuits," the New York Times reported, "legal experts said it has rarely, if ever, been used before to protect a president, especially for actions taken before he entered office."
Heidi Li Feldman, professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center, wrote in a series of tweets late Tuesday that "by putting the DOJ to work defending him over conduct that has nothing to do with his official capacity, Trump has taken another giant step toward full-blown authoritarianism."
"Nothing in the official capacity of the presidency required Donald Trump to slur E. Jean Carroll. He may have thereby defamed her," Feldman added. "It is his personal responsibility to defend the suit, not the work of the U.S. government."
By converting the DoJ to a private law firm serving his unofficial legal interests, Trump again shows that he has no understanding of the office of the president in our constitutional democracy. 3/
-- Heidi Li Feldman (@HeidiLiFeldman) September 9, 2020
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called the Justice Department's intervention "outrageous and outright unacceptable."
"The Justice Department should serve the people, not a president," said Jayapal. "Yet Bill Barr continues to act not as the attorney general for the American people but as the personal henchman for Donald Trump."
Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the date of a recent court ruling in E. Jean Carroll's case.
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E. Jean Carroll Blames Trump's Attacks on Her Character for Firing From Elle Magazine
"Tell me again how sexual assault claims ruin men?"
Feb 19, 2020
Women's rights advocates came to the defense of longtime columnist E. Jean Carroll Wednesday after she revealed she was fired from Elle magazine months after coming forward with sexual assault allegations against President Donald Trump.
Carroll claimed her dismissal from her job as an advice columnist for the magazine, where she worked for more than two decades, came as the result of Trump's attacks on her following the accusation.
"Because Trump ridiculed my reputation, laughed at my looks, and dragged me through the mud, after 26 years, Elle fired me," Carroll tweeted after her firing was reported by news outlets. "I don't blame Elle... I blame Donald Trump."
Last June, Carroll wrote in a New York magazine article that the president raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s. Trump denied the allegation, saying he didn't know Carroll despite photographic evidence that they had met, claiming she was not his "type," and calling her a liar.
In November, Carroll filed a defamation lawsuit against Trump. Summer Zervos, a former contestant on "The Apprentice," filed a similar suit against the president in 2017 after accusing him of assaulting her.
According to the New York Times, in a court filing in December Carroll's lawyer wrote that her client had lost her job as a result of Trump's defamation. The lawyer also moved to block Trump's attempt to have the case delayed until the New York Court of Appeals determines whether a sitting president can legally be sued--a ruling that may not be handed down until after the general election in November.
If Trump is unable to delay the case, he may have to provide a DNA sample, which Carroll has sought for months to bolster her claims.
On social media, supporters of Carroll condemned Elle's decision to fire her while she is facing attacks on her character from the president.
"In the end, a magazine for women chose the man," tweeted political scientist Rachel Bitecofer.
Others accused the magazine of being on the wrong side of history and of joining the ranks of many organizations throughout history which have retaliated against sexual assault and harrassment survivors for coming forward.
"Any and every magazine claiming to be in support of women--should be standing behind E. Jean Carroll," tweeted journalist Carrie Courogen. "This is so incredibly disheartening."
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Judge Rejects Trump's 'Lame Effort' at Dismissal of E. Jean Carroll's Defamation Case
"Justice prevails yet again."
Jan 09, 2020
Author and advice columnist E. Jean Carroll celebrated Thursday after a New York judge rejected President Donald Trump's attempt to have Carroll's defamation lawsuit against him dismissed.
The case, involving statements Trump made last year after Carroll publicly accused him of raping her in the 1990s, will now move into the discovery phase.
Carroll described Trump's attempt to dismiss the suit as a "lame effort." The president had argued that he was not in New York or a resident of the state when he made the statements, and so the court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.
Trump, state Supreme Court Justice Doris Ling-Cohan said in her ruling, provided "not even a tweet, much less an affidavit" to argue his point--a reference to the president's penchant for using Twitter to make official statements. Trump's lawyer only provided the court with a statement saying the president has lived in the White House for three years.
Supporters of Carroll joined her in applauding the decision.
"It's not easy to get your day in court, and nobody deserves one more than she, for surviving a close encounter of the worst kind with him," tweeted radio host Grant Stern.
In her memoir "What Do We Need Men For?" and in New York magazine last summer, Carroll alleged that in the 1990s, Trump threw her up against a wall in a department store dressing room and raped her.
The president responded by claiming he didn't know Carroll--despite the fact that a photo of the two of them together was readily available--and saying the columnist was "lying" and was "not his type."
Carroll's case is one of two pending defamation cases against Trump from women who have accused the president of assault. Trump has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by at least 24 women, leading some critics to argue that the credible allegations should long ago have been considered grounds for the president's impeachment.
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