E. Jean Carroll, 79, says Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store and then defamed her after she went public with the allegations years later.

Trump, who is facing a slew of legal woes that threaten to derail his 2024 run for a second term in the White House, denies the allegations.

The start of the trial comes just weeks after his historic arraignment on criminal charges related to a hush-money payment made to a porn star just before the 2016 election.

Carroll, a former columnist for Elle magazine, says she was raped by Trump in the changing room at the luxury Bergdorf Goodman department store on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan in the mid-1990s.

She said the attack came after Trump asked her for shopping advice.

Carroll first made the allegation in an excerpt from her book published by New York Magazine in 2019.

Trump responded then by saying he never met Carroll, that she was “not my type” and that she was “totally lying.”

It is important to note that the outcome of this proceeding will drastically influence the 2024 ambition of the ex-president