Politics

FACT CHECK: Does This Picture Show Trump With E. Jean Carroll?

Official portrait of President Donald J. Trump, Friday, October 6, 2017. (Official White House photo by Shealah Craighead)

The Facebook page Teanderthal Party shared an image that purportedly shows an old photograph of Donald Trump with E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who recently accused the president of sexual assault.

Verdict: False

The woman in the picture is makeup artist Jill Harth, not Carroll.

Fact Check:

Carroll made headlines last week after New York Magazine published an excerpt from her upcoming book, “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal.” In it, she alleges that Trump sexually assaulted her in the dressing room of a luxury department store in the 1990s.

The White House has denied the allegation, calling the story “completely false and unrealistic.” Trump, for his part, claimed that he has never met Carroll.

Even though Teanderthal Party could have simply pointed to a black and white photo of Trump and Carroll speaking to one another at a party, circa 1987, the page instead tries to refute Trump’s claim by showing a photo of Trump and a blonde woman, ostensibly Carroll. There’s just one problem: it’s not Carroll in the picture.

Trump is actually pictured with Harth, a woman he dated briefly in the 1990s. The photo is shown in a 2016 episode of “Inside Edition” that profiled Harth, who has also accused Trump of sexual misconduct.

In an email to The Daily Caller News Foundation, Harth confirmed that she, not Carroll, appears in the photo. An agent for Carroll also confirmed that it wasn’t her pictured.

In an interview with The New York Times, Carroll disputed the characterization that she was raped, saying, “My word is fight, my word is not the victim one. I have not been raped. Something has not been done to me. I fought.”

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