As first reported by The Associated Press, writer E. Jean Carroll, who has accused President Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s is now requesting a DNA sample to determine whether or not his genetic material is on a dress she alleges she was wearing at the time of the incident.
In a request sent to President Trump’s lawyers via email on Thursday, Ms. Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, asks that a sample of saliva be submitted on March 2 in Washington, DC.
Per the New York Times, Lawrence S. Rosen, a lawyer representing the president in the defamation suit filed by Ms. Carroll back in November, has not responded to a request for comment.
Ms. Carroll's initial public allegation that President Trump had raped her came via a book excerpt published last June by New York Magazine, in which she writes that Trump raped her in the late 1990s in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in Manhattan.
Speaking to CNN, Ms. Carroll, 76, claims that Trump "just went at it", allegedly cornering her in a dressing room at the luxury department store, adding that "he pulled down my tights, and it was a fight. I want women to know that I did not stand there, I did not freeze, I was not paralyzed, which is a reaction could have had because it's so shocking. No, I fought."
Below is the full interview with CNN from June of last year in which Ms. Caroll details the alleged incident:Ms. Caroll - who was 52 at the time of the alleged attack - claims she has kept the black wool coat-style dress that she was wearing on the day of the alleged incident.
She says she has worn the dress just once since the purported attack, and that was when she was photographed for the cover of the New York magazine issue that included the book excerpt containing the rape accusation.
Kaplan has since had the black wool coat-style dress tested at the Forensic Analytical Crime Lab in California, and a lab report exclusively obtained by the Associated Press states that DNA found on the sleeves was a mix of at least four people - with at least one of them being male.
The report shows that several other people - whose names have been redacted - have also been tested and eliminated as possible contributors to the mix.
Writing to her 45,000+ Twitter followers, Ms. Carroll said: "The dress has been tested. We have the results. My attorney @kaplanrobbie has served notice to @realDonaldTrump 's attorney to submit a sample of Trump's DNA."
Speaking to The Hill at the time of Carroll's accusation, Trump said she was "totally lying", adding: "I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?"
Per the Independent, Ms. Carroll filed a defamation suit against President Trump back in November of last year, after the POTUS vehemently denied her allegations. The suit reportedly states that Trump smeared her, and that by branding her a liar, her career as an advice columnist for Elle magazine has been damaged.
Ms. Carroll is seeking unspecified damages and a retraction of President Trump's statements.
