Trump lawyers seek delay of defamation suit by writer who accused him of rape

Attorneys for President Trump asked a court to delay a request for his DNA by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her in the 1990s, until New York’s highest court rules whether an unrelated defamation suit against the president can proceed.

Trump’s attorney Marc Kasowitz noted that a ruling is still pending on a defamation lawsuit by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who has also accused Trump of sexual assault, The Associated Press reported. The president’s lawyers are asking the state Supreme Court to rule that an incumbent president cannot be sued in state court.

Kasowitz wrote that “that threshold issue should be decided” before any further action takes place on Carroll’s request.

Carroll, who included her account of Trump raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in her most recent book “What Do We Need Men For?”, sued the president after he said she was “totally lying” to sell her book last year and claimed to have never met her despite a photo of the two with their then-spouses.

Carroll has argued that a DNA sample could aid in her lawsuit by comparing it to male genetic material in skin cells on a dress she said she wore during the incident and has not washed since, only wearing it for a magazine shoot last year.

Carroll blasted the request Wednesday, asking on Twitter what Trump was “afraid of.”

I asked for Trump to provide his DNA sample to be tested against the dress I wore when he attacked me.

His lawyers replied to my request by seeking to DELAY my lawsuit.

What is @realDonaldTrump afraid of?https://t.co/WnhROzk9rL

— E. Jean Carroll (@ejeancarroll) February 5, 2020

“It is hardly a surprise that Trump is seeking to stop this lawsuit. The Court has rejected his previous attempts to avoid discovery,” Roberta Kaplan, a partner with law firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink and counsel for Carroll, told The Hill in a statement.

“One big problem that Trump and his lawyers have is the indisputable fact that he has willingly participated in other lawsuits in his personal capacity since he was elected President and it would be fundamentally unfair to allow him to pick and choose which cases he wants to participate in,” Kaplan added.

“Our client will continue to seek DNA from Trump based on a forensic analysis of the dress she was wearing that could prove her case.”

Zervos, who was one of more than a dozen other women who accused Trump of sexual assault during the 2016 presidential campaign, also sued him after he called his accusers “liars” on the campaign trail.

The state Court of Appeals has imposed a May 11 deadline for legal filings for both sides in Zervos’s case.

Updated at 3:52 p.m.