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Trump
may soon
have to
answer
rape
allegations
under
oath
By
Linda So
reuters.com
NEW
YORK -
During a
December
visit to
New York
City,
writer
E. Jean
Carroll
says she
went
shopping
with a
fashion
consultant
to find
the
“best
outfit”
for one
of the
most
important
days of
her life
- when
she’ll
sit
face-to-face
with the
man she
accuses
of
raping
her
decades
ago,
former
President
Donald
Trump.
FILE
PHOTO:
U.S.
President
Donald
Trump
rape
accuser
E. Jean
Carroll
arrives
for her
hearing
at
federal
court
during
the
coronavirus
disease
(COVID-19)
pandemic
in the
Manhattan
borough
of New
York
City,
New
York,
U.S.,
October
21,
2020.
REUTERS/Carlo
Allegri/File
Photo
The
author
and
journalist
hopes
that day
will
come
this
year.
Her
lawyers
are
seeking
to
depose
Trump in
a
defamation
lawsuit
that
Carroll
filed
against
the
former
president
in
November
2019
after he
denied
her
accusation
that he
raped
her at a
Manhattan
department
store in
the
mid-1990s.
Trump
said he
never
knew
Carroll
and
accused
her of
lying to
sell her
new
book,
adding:
“She’s
not my
type.”
She
plans to
be there
if Trump
is
deposed.
“I
am
living
for the
moment
to walk
into
that
room to
sit
across
the
table
from
him,”
Carroll
told
Reuters
in an
interview.
“I think
of it
everyday.”
Carroll,
77, a
former
Elle
magazine
columnist,
seeks
unspecified
damages
in her
lawsuit
and a
retraction
of
Trump’s
statements.
It is
one of
two
defamation
cases
involving
sexual
misconduct
allegations
against
Trump
that
could
move
forward
faster
now that
he has
left the
presidency.
While in
office,
Trump’s
lawyers
delayed
the case
in part
by
arguing
that the
pressing
duties
of his
office
made
responding
to civil
lawsuits
impossible.
“The
only
barrier
to
proceeding
with the
civil
suits
was that
he’s the
president,”
said
Jennifer
Rodgers,
a former
federal
prosecutor
and now
an
adjunct
professor
of
clinical
law at
the New
York
University
School
of Law.
“I
think
there
will be
a sense
among
the
judges
that
it’s
time to
get a
move on
in these
cases,”
said
Roberta
Kaplan,
Carroll’s
attorney.
An
attorney
for
Trump
and
another
representative
of the
former
president
did not
respond
to
requests
for
comment.
Trump
faces a
similar
defamation
lawsuit
from
Summer
Zervos,
a former
contestant
on his
reality
television
show
“The
Apprentice.”
In 2016,
Zervos
accused
Trump of
sexual
misconduct,
saying
that he
kissed
her
against
her will
at a
2007
meeting
in New
York and
later
groped
her at a
California
hotel as
the two
met to
discuss
job
opportunities.
Trump
denied
the
allegations
and
called
Zervos a
liar,
prompting
her to
sue him
for
defamation
in 2017,
seeking
damages
and a
retraction.
Trump
tried
unsuccessfully
to have
the case
dismissed,
arguing
that, as
president,
he was
immune
from
suits
filed in
state
courts.
His
lawyers
appealed
to the
New York
Court of
Appeals,
which is
still
considering
the
case.
Zervos
filed a
motion
in early
February
asking
the
court to
resume
the case
now that
Trump’s
no
longer
president.
Zervos
and
Carroll
are
among
more
than two
dozen
women
who have
publicly
accused
Trump of
sexual
misconduct
that
they say
occurred
in the
years
before
he
became
president.
Other
accusers
include
a former
model
who
claims
Trump
sexually
assaulted
her at
the 1997
U.S.
Open
tennis
tournament;
a former
Miss
Universe
pageant
contestant
who said
Trump
groped
her in
2006;
and a
reporter
who
alleges
Trump
forcibly
kissed
her
without
her
consent
in 2005
at his
Mar-a-Lago
resort.
Trump
has
denied
the
allegations
and
called
them
politically
motivated.
In
September,
after
several
unsuccessful
attempts
by
Trump’s
lawyers
to get
Carroll’s
case
dismissed
or
delayed,
U.S.
Justice
Department
officials
under
his
administration
took the
unusual
step of
asking
that the
government
be
substituted
for
Trump as
the
defendant
in the
case.
Justice
Department
lawyers
argued
that
Trump,
like any
typical
government
employee,
is
entitled
under
federal
law to
immunity
from
civil
lawsuits
when
performing
his job.
They
argued
that he
was
acting
in his
capacity
as
president
when he
said
Carroll
was
lying.
Legal
experts
said it
was
unprecedented
for the
Justice
Department
to
defend a
president
for
conduct
before
he took
office.
When
Judge
Lewis
Kaplan
of the
Federal
District
Court in
Manhattan
rejected
that
argument,
the
Justice
Department
appealed.
The U.S.
Court of
Appeals
for the
Second
Circuit
has yet
to rule
on it.
It’s
yet to
be seen
whether
Justice
Department
officials
under
President
Joe
Biden,
who took
office
last
month,
will
continue
to
defend
the case
on
Trump’s
behalf.
The
White
House
and the
Justice
Department
declined
to
comment.
If
the
appeals
court
upholds
Judge
Kaplan’s
decision,
it would
likely
clear
the way
for
Trump to
be
deposed
by
Carroll’s
lawyers.
UNIDENTIFIED
MALE DNA
Carroll’s
lawyers
are also
seeking
a DNA
sample
from
Trump.
Carroll
says she
still
has the
dress
she was
wearing
when
Trump
allegedly
attacked
her.
“I
hung it
in my
closet,”
she
said.
Carroll
said she
randomly
crossed
paths
with
Trump in
the
Bergdorf
Goodman’s
store in
the
mid-1990s.
Carroll,
who
hosted a
TV talk
show at
the
time,
said
Trump
recognized
her. The
two
chatted,
she
said.
Trump
asked
her to
pick out
a gift
for an
unidentified
woman,
and they
eventually
ended up
in the
lingerie
department.
After
asking
her to
try on a
body
suit,
Trump
closed
the door
in a
dressing
room,
pinned
her
against
a wall,
unzipped
his
pants
and
sexually
assaulted
her,
according
to the
complaint.
Carroll
said she
told two
friends
about
the
alleged
attack
shortly
after it
happened,
but did
not
report
Trump to
police,
fearing
retribution
from the
wealthy
and
well-connected
businessman.
Decades
later,
Carroll
went
public
with her
story in
a June
2019 New
York
magazine
article,
adapted
from a
new
book,
“What Do
We Need
Men For?
A Modest
Proposal.”
She
said she
was
inspired
to
recount
the
incident
by the
#MeToo
movement,
which
emboldened
women to
share
their
experiences
of
sexual
assault
and
harassment.
In
photos
shot for
that
story,
Kaplan,
at the
request
of the
magazine’s
photography
director,
wore the
same
black
Donna
Karan
dress
that she
said she
had worn
on the
day that
Trump
allegedly
assaulted
her.
When
Carroll
filed
her
lawsuit
later in
2019,
her
lawyer,
Kaplan,
had a
guard
escort
her to
retrieve
the
dress
from her
closet
for
forensic
testing.
An
analysis
concluded
no semen
was
found on
the
dress,
but the
DNA of
an
unidentified
male was
detected
on the
shoulder
and
sleeves,
according
to the
Jan. 8,
2020 lab
report,
which
was
reviewed
by
Reuters.
If
the
dress
does
contain
traces
of
Trump’s
DNA, it
would
not
prove
his
guilt.
But a
match
could be
used as
evidence
that he
had
contact
with the
dress
and to
help
disprove
his
claims
that he
never
met
Carroll,
according
to two
forensic
experts
not
involved
in the
case.
“How
his DNA
got on
that
dress
would be
the
argument,”
said
Monte
Miller,
a
biochemist
who runs
a DNA
analysis
consultancy
and
previously
worked
at the
Texas
Department
of
Public
Safety’s
State
Crime
Laboratory.
“It’s
for the
attorneys
and the
courts
and
everybody
else to
argue
about
why it’s
there
and how
it got
there.”
Carroll
said
she’s
confident
the DNA
on the
dress
belongs
to Trump
and
wants
her day
in
court.
She said
she now
sleeps
with a
gun next
to her
bed
because
she has
received
death
threats
since
publicly
accusing
Trump.
“This
defamation
suit is
not
about
me,”
said
Carroll,
who
meets
regularly
with
other
women
who have
accused
Trump of
sexual
misconduct.
It’s
about
every
woman
“who
can’t
speak
up.”
(This
story
refiles
to fix
Carroll
name
reference
in sixth
paragraph
from
bottom)
Reporting
by Linda
So;
editing
by Jason
Szep and
Brian
Thevenot
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