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Trump’s Exit Should Allow Lawsuit to Proceed, Rape Accuser Says

Trump’s Exit Should Allow Lawsuit to Proceed, Rape Accuser Says

President Donald Trump’s attempt to delay handing over documents in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit should be denied because the case won’t inconvenience him once he’s out of office, her lawyer said.

The New York advice columnist, who claims Trump raped her two decades ago in a department store dressing room, is seeking to keep the case on track in the last weeks of Trump’s presidency. She sued last year claiming that Trump defamed her by calling her a politically motivated liar when she went public with her allegation.

Trump’s Exit Should Allow Lawsuit to Proceed, Rape Accuser Says

Trump, who’s been unsuccessfully attempting to derail the lawsuit for more than a year, asked that it be put on hold while he appeals a ruling that denied the Justice Department’s request to substitute the government for Trump as the defendant.

Carroll has been trying to push ahead with discovery, arguing Trump is likely to fail in his appeal.

“This case is unlikely to involve many documents and any burden on President Trump’s official duties will end when he leaves office in a few weeks,” Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said in a filing Thursday. Carroll had agreed to wait to depose Trump and collect a DNA sample from him until after the appeals court rules.

Kaplan also took a swipe at any suggestion Trump might make that the case would get in the way of a second term in office.

“President Trump may take the position that he has in fact been re-elected to a second term in office,” she said. “The court need not indulge such dangerous nonsense in deciding whether to stay proceedings here.”

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.