Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the harm he caused writer E. Jean Carroll is typical of the former president and notorious liar. At a press conference on Friday, Trump posed in front of the (fake) gold walls of Trump Tower, flanked by second-rate lawyers, and defamed the woman who has already won two court cases against him.

At first he denied it: “She made up the story that I had attacked her, and it is 100 percent made up.”

Then he evaded the question: “I would have had no interest in getting to know her in any form.”

Then he evaded: “Your favorite show is law and orderThere is an almost exact story like her story in law and order about an attack in the dressing room of a department store.”

It was strange to hear Trump say that law and order The story is a fallacy because it failed to convince the jury when then-Trump attorney Joe Tacopina presented it in court. Instead, the jury unanimously found Trump guilty of sexual assault and awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

USA-ELECTION/TRUMP-NEW YORK

David Dee Delgado

Trump had just verbally appealed the verdict and now returned to this point, even though the theory contained a massive flaw. The episode that Trump said sparked Carroll’s story aired 15 years later. after Carroll told people that Trump had attacked her. That’s not how time works. Still, as is often the case with Trump, every accusation is a confession. That could be true here, and perhaps he’s the one who got the idea from an outside news source.

Trump has vigorously claimed that the idea that physical contact could occur in a “crowded department store” like Bergdorf Goodman was unfathomable. In fact, the idea was quite plausible. And here’s the proof.

Let us go back to the late 1980s, when the “short-fingered vulgarian” devoured every word written about him, including the monthly mockery in spy Magazine, a short-lived satirical monthly founded by editors Graydon Carter and Kurt Anderson. In October 1987, I co-wrote the magazine’s centerfold: The SPY card for a secret lunchtime romance.

Spy Magazine

The introduction explained the concept: “New Yorkers know where to go when they want to be seen – the Four Seasons, Mortimer’s, Le Cirque. But where do they go when they don’t want to be seen?”

The map included a list of places where couples could stop by for a quickie in Midtown. These potential love nests included a closet in St. Thomas Church, a bank safety deposit box, and the dressing room of the Chanel boutique at BERGDORF GOODMAN.

In fact, I remember exploring the various department stores along Fifth Avenue at the time—Bendel’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Takashimaya—until I realized that Bergdorf’s offered the most discretion. And if a second-floor dressing room offered plenty of privacy, one on the sixth floor would have been even more private.

Contrary to Trump’s repeated claims that such a thing could never have happened in a locker room because the doors were “LOCKED,” that claim was refuted there, in print.

There is no way to determine whether Trump read this card, but the possibility increases when you consider that the entry following Bergdorf’s on the card actually contained Trump’s name.

Spy Magazine

Spy Magazine

To be clear, the article assumed that any couple seeking a sexual experience in the dressing room of a midtown department store was acting consensually. Leave it to Trump to turn a fun activity into something so offensive and hurtful that a jury found he had violated civil law. That, too, is Trump’s style.

Adam Gray/Reuters

In this issue of the magazine, Trump was mentioned again, giving us another reason to believe he had read it. The cover story was “The SPY 100,” the magazine’s annual roundup of the “most annoying, alarming and horrifying people, places and things in New York and the nation.” Trump came in third behind corporate looter Ivan Boesky and Ronald Reagan.

The year before, Trump had even secured first place in the “most annoying” category. But the following year, he fell to third place, partly because of extenuating circumstances. spy He foresightedly noted that he “did not run for office.”

Spy Magazine