E. Jean Carroll Wants Donald Trump’s DNA to Prove He’s Lying About Alleged Assault

Content warning: sexual assault.

At this point, dozens of women have accused Donald Trump of various forms of sexual misconduct. Trump has denied all of the accusations (despite admitting to assault and predatory behavior in other settings) and in many cases, he denies even knowing the women.

Writer E. Jean Carroll, who came forward last year to accuse Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s, was one of those dismissed by Trump. He said he didn’t know her, despite there being pictures of them together at a party. But he denied knowing her and denied assaulting her. And she’s determined to prove him wrong.

When Carroll shared her story (as an excerpt from her memoir) with New York Magazine, she was photographed wearing the black coat dress she said she was wearing at the time of the alleged assault.

“The Donna Karan coatdress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening,” she wrote. Now she’s asking for a sample of Trump’s DNA to test against the stain she says he left on her as she broke free of that dressing room.

When Carroll decided to come forward, it was too late to pursue legal action for the alleged assault itself, since the statute of limitations had expired. (At the time, New York had a shameful five-year statute of limitations of rape cases, which they’ve since abolished, though that doesn’t apply retroactively.)

So Carroll is suing Trump for defamation after he repeatedly called her a liar. He implied that the other instances of sexual assault she describes in her book are lies. He also insulted her physical appearance, saying that he couldn’t have raped her because she was “not [his] type,” which really isn’t the airtight defense he thinks it is.

“Trump’s series of false, insulting, and defamatory statements about Carroll–and his actual malice in making those statements–are fully consistent with his tried-and-true playbook for responding to credible public reports that he sexually assaulted women,” the lawsuit reads.

Trump has attempted to get Carroll’s lawsuit dismissed, though the New York Supreme Court recently denied that effort.

According to the AP, Carrol’s lawyer says it’s “standard operating procedure” to request a DNA sample in this sort of case.

“As a result, we’ve requested a simple saliva sample from Mr. Trump to test his DNA, and there really is no valid basis for him to object,” she said.

I’m sure that doesn’t mean he won’t try.

(via AP News, image: Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Glamour)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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