Lawyers for a woman who has accused US President Donald Trump of raping her in the 1990s have told a court he is trying “to stop the truth from ever coming out” by seeking to delay her defamation lawsuit and her push to attain his DNA.
Mr Trump’s lawyers have asked a court to put writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case on hold until New York’s highest court rules — in a different suit — on whether the incumbent president can be sued in state courts.
Mr Trump denies Ms Carroll’s allegation. She is suing him for saying she lied.
“Trump, for his part, has done everything he can to stop the truth from ever coming out,” Ms Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan said in court papers filed on Tuesday.
She argued there was no justification for waiting months for a decision in the other suit, a somewhat similar defamation claim filed by former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos.
A request for comment was sent to Mr Trump’s lawyers.
Ms Carroll was until recently a longtime Elle magazine advice writer. The magazine ended her contract in December, according to court papers.
Ms Carroll has said many readers shied away from seeking her advice after the president called her a liar.
She alleged last year that Mr Trump raped her in the 1990s after the two encountered each other in a Manhattan luxury department store and went into a dressing room, bantering about trying on a bodysuit.
Mr Trump has said Ms Carroll was “totally lying” to sell a book she published last year.
He said he had never met her, although a photo exists of the two and their then-spouses at a social event in 1987. Mr Trump said the picture merely showed him standing in a line.
Ms Carroll is seeking a DNA sample from Mr Trump to see whether it matches unidentified male genetic material in skin cells on a dress Ms Carroll says she wore during the alleged rape, hasn’t laundered and has never worn again, except for a photo shoot last year.
Mr Trump’s lawyers have called Ms Carroll’s evidence-gathering efforts “extensive and burdensome”.
He is also fighting a defamation claim from Ms Zervos, a California restaurateur who appeared on his former reality show “The Apprentice” in 2006.
A decade later, she accused him of subjecting her to unwanted kissing and groping when she sought career advice on two occasions in 2007. Her lawsuit says Mr Trump defamed her by calling her a liar.
Appeals judges last month put Ms Zervos’ case on hold until the state’s highest court, called the Court of Appeals, rules on Mr Trump’s argument that presidents are not subject to state court lawsuits while in office.
Both the Carroll and Zervos suits seek damages and retractions of Mr Trump’s statements about them. Ms Zervos also wants an apology.
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