New York journalist E. Jean Carroll wants President Trump to turn over his DNA in her defamation lawsuit against him.
Lawyers for Carroll — who sued Trump for publicly denying her claims that he raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman changing room around 1995 — notified Trump’s team Thursday that they would be seeking a DNA sample from him to compare against the clothing that Carroll wore during the alleged incident.
Lawyers for the Elle magazine “Ask E. Jean” columnist are requesting that Trump hand over the sample by March 2 in Washington.
Carroll said she only wore the dress one other time since the alleged assault.
Carroll’s legal team had the black wool dress that she wore at the time of the alleged incident submitted to a lab for testing, which found a mix of four people’s DNA on the sleeve, one of which belongs to a man, according to a lab report.
And others have already been eliminated as the contributors of the genetic material.
Now they want Trump to have a saliva sample taken for “analysis and comparison against unidentified male DNA present on the dress,” Carroll’s notice says.
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in a statement that DNA testing in these types of cases “has become standard operating procedure,” and “there really is no valid basis for him to object.”
Carroll said in a statement that this test “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.”
After Carroll filed her Nov. 4 lawsuit, Trump asked a judge to toss the case, claiming the New York court didn’t have jurisdiction because he made the alleged defamatory statements while he was living in DC, where he currently resides as president. A judge rejected that argument and Carroll’s case is set to proceed in Manhattan.
Lawyers for Trump did not immediately return a request for comment.