NEW YORK (Tribune News Service) — E. Jean Carroll returned to the witness stand Thursday where she was expected to face a tough cross-examination following her gripping testimony in Manhattan federal court describing an alleged violent attack and rape by Donald Trump.

In searing detail, the 79-year-old Carroll described being violently molested and raped by the former president inside a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s after they bumped into each other in a chance encounter.

Carroll, who first filed suit against Trump in 2019 when he called her a liar from the White House, told jurors that she had avoided reading online commentary but took a look before coming to court on Thursday when her curiosity got the better of her.

"I thought I would just take a peek at my Twitter," Carroll said. "And there is was again — the onslaught, of 'the liar,' 'slut,' 'ugly,' 'old.'

"It's just rolling," Carroll added, fighting back tears. "It's not a great way to begin the day, but I couldn't be more proud to be here."

On Wednesday, Carroll described losing her job at Elle magazine amid a flood of death threats when she spoke out as a furious then-President Trump sought to destroy her reputation. She told the jury the attack traumatized her to the point she was never intimate with someone again.

"I flirted with Donald Trump … I laughed at his jokes. I found him charming. And what happened to me when I was flirting? I got into serious trouble, and so I, after that event, I found it's impossible for me — if I meet a man who's a possibility — it's impossible for me to even, well, to even look at him and smile," Carroll said.

"And in order to fall in love or have dinner with someone, you gotta at least look at them in the eye and smile," she continued. "And I couldn't — I couldn't force myself to show a man that I liked that I liked them."

Trump's defense attorney Joe Tacopina was set to cross-examine Carroll for most of Thursday.

During the end of her time on direct examination, Carroll's lawyer Mike Ferrera sought to get ahead of questions Trump's lawyer was likely to pose. Trump has accused Carroll of fabricating the assault to sell books and being a Democratic operative, among other allegations.

"I like attention. There's no question. I don't particularly like attention because I'm suing Donald. That is not, getting attention for being raped is not — it's hard. Getting attention for making a great three-bean salad, that would be good."

Trump has not attended the trial yet, and Tacopina doesn't know whether he plans to. The former president, seeking the Republican presidential nomination again, has faced admonishments from the presiding judge for online missives about the case.

On Wednesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan told Tacopina he should have a word with his client — who's facing a maelstrom of legal threats — about the "entirely inappropriate" comments that could pose "a new source of potential liability."

After Carroll's testimony, jurors will hear from two other women who have accused Trump of sexual assault, Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds, as well as close friends of Carroll's who she told about the alleged assault in the aftermath. They will also see the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape, in which Trump bragged about molesting women.

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