Attorneys for E. Jean Carroll, an author and advice columnist who alleges that Donald Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in 1995 or 1996, are now asking him for a DNA sample, as reported by the Associated Press. Why? To determine if it matches unidentified genetic material on the dress she was wearing during the alleged assault. Trump denies her assault claim, saying she’s “totally lying,” and even denies ever meeting her. There is a photograph of them at a party in 1987, though Trump has dismissed that, too. This DNA request is part of Carroll’s defamation suit against Trump, which she filed in November. That defamation suit is in response to Trump’s aforementioned accusation that she is a liar.
If your first thought is: Wait, can they test the DNA now? Carroll actually noted that the coat “still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening” in her now-viral essay, which appeared in New York magazine in June. She says she wore it once more for that piece’s accompanying photo shoot.
Obviously, DNA evidence can still be contested, but Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, had the dress tested after Trump denied Carroll’s public allegations, according to the AP. At least four people’s DNA has been found on the sleeves, with at least one of those people being a male, according to the news outlet, which says it received a copy of the lab report.
“Unidentified male DNA on the dress could prove that Donald Trump not only knows who I am, but also that he violently assaulted me in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, and then defamed me by lying about it and impugning my character,” Carroll said in a statement on Thursday, as reported by the AP.
“This case turns on whether Donald Trump lied when he said that he had not sexually assaulted E Jean Carroll and, in fact, had never even met her," Kaplan said in a statement, as reported by BuzzFeed News. "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.”
Her lawyers served notice to one of Trump’s attorneys on Thursday, Jan. 30. He has been asked to submit the sample on March 2 in Washington, D.C.
Carroll also tweeted about this latest step.
“While I can no longer hold Donald Trump accountable for assaulting me more than twenty years ago, I can hold him accountable for lying about it and I fully intend to do so,” Carroll said in a statement in November. Trump’s lawyer has tried, and failed, to get this defamation suit dismissed.