Trump On E. Jean Carroll Rape Allegation: 'I've Never Met This Person In My Life'

President Donald Trump  has responded to the rape allegations described by columnist E. Jean Carroll in graphic detail  in New York Magazine.

In a statement, Trump said that he’s “never met this person in my life” in reference to Carroll.

Below is a photograph of Carroll, Trump, and his then-wife Ivana Trump at an NBC party in 1987:

“She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section,” Trump said in his statement, before making a pointed reference to Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, claiming Carroll’s account is on par with the allegations waged against Kavanaugh by Julie Swetnick .

“There is zero evidence” he said. “No pictures? No surveillance? No video? No reports? No sales attendants around? I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident, because it never happened.”

“False accusations diminish the severity of real assault and all should condemn false accusations and any actual assault in the strongest possible terms,” said Trump before a direct attack on the Democratic Party .

The president asked that anyone who has information that Carroll is working with the Democratic Party should “notify us as soon as possible.”

On Friday, New York Magazine published an excerpt from Carroll’s upcoming book, “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal,” where she described an alleged attack by Trump in detail.

Carroll claims that in the mid-1990s, she ran into Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman store and was asked to help him buy lingerie for an unnamed woman. The then-52-year-old agreed and from there, their exchange went south. The writer claimed that Trump pinned her against a wall and then forced “his fingers around my private area, thrusts his penis halfway — or completely, I’m not certain — inside me.”

Prior to Trump’s statement, the White House issued a statement to New York Magazine on the alleged assault, saying that Carroll’s story “is a completely false and unrealistic story surfacing 25 years after allegedly taking place and was created simply to make the President look bad.”

The famed writer behind the “Ask E. Jean” column is the 16th woman to accuse Trump of sexual misconduct.

This has been updated throughout.