Trump Rape Accuser Slams Effort to Stall Her Defamation Case
Trump Accuser Says Effort to Stall Case is ‘Too Little Too Late’
(Bloomberg) -- A New York advice columnist who claims President Donald Trump raped her two decades ago asked a judge to deny his request to put her defamation lawsuit on hold until a related lawsuit is resolved -- which might not happen until after the November election.
E. Jean Carroll, who went public with her claims in June, said in a court filing on Tuesday that Trump is using questionable delay tactics to avoid her requests for discovery and a DNA sample that she says may help her case.
“Nothing in Trump’s extensive history of personal litigation during his presidency supports his bald assertion that discovery into whether he lied about raping Carroll will harm the national interest,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in the filing in Manhattan.
Trump’s lawyers have argued that Carroll’s suit should be suspended until the state’s highest court decides whether a sitting president can be sued. The New York Court of Appeals will consider that issue in a similar lawsuit by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality TV show who claims he sexually assaulted her and defamed her by denying it.
With Trump’s earlier attempts to stall or dismiss the case already rejected, Carroll says in the filing that his latest effort is “too little, too late.”
Trump’s lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
The president’s lawyer argued earlier that Trump is likely to win the Zervos suit and a stay is mandated because of “the unique role of the president.”
“Courts are required to give deference to the president of the United States,” he said.
If Trump’s motion fails, the president may be required to submit a DNA sample, most likely from a swab inside his cheek, according to court filings. Carroll said she believes Trump’s DNA may match a sample from the dress or shoes she wore the day of the alleged attack. She claims Trump defamed her by denying the incident.
Carroll claims Trump assaulted her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in 1995 or 1996 after she bumped into him while shopping. Zervos claims Trump assaulted her at a private dinner meeting more than a decade ago in Beverly Hills.
To contact the reporter on this story: Erik Larson in New York at elarson4@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Joe Schneider
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.