A 75-year-old former advice columnist for a women’s fashion magazine last June claimed President Trump raped her in a department-store d...
A 75-year-old former advice columnist for a women’s fashion magazine last June claimed President Trump raped her in a department-store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
The story then completely disappeared, in part because the accuser, E. Jean Carroll, turned out to be pretty weird.
But she’s back now, and she wants Trump to provide a DNA sample to compare to male genetic material that she claims is found on the dress she says she wore during the alleged rape. Her lawyers on Thursday served a Trump attorney with papers requesting the president’s DNA be submitted on March 2.
Carroll claimed in a lawsuit filed in November that Trump attacked her sometime in the 1990s at Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in Manhattan. Trump has denied the allegation, saying in June, when she first emerged, that he had “never met this person in my life.”
According to the filed papers, test results from a black Donna Karan dress Carroll says she wore the day of the alleged assault contains genetic material.
The results note that “acid phosphatase activity, a presumptive indication of the presence of semen, was not detected in any of thirty-three fluorescent stains tested on the dress,” according to the filing. However, samples tested from the dress sleeve contained genetic material that analysts described as coming from at least one “male,” CNN reported.
“After Trump sexually assaulted me, I took the black dress I had been wearing and hung it in my closet. I only wore it once since then and that was at the photoshoot for the New York Magazine article about my book,” Carroll said in a statement Thursday.
“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’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, added that “testing unidentified male DNA on the dress she wore during that assault has become standard operating procedure in these circumstances given the remarkable advances in DNA technology, particularly where, as is the case here, other potential contributors have been excluded.” Referring to a request to sample Trump’s saliva to test his DNA, Kaplan said, “There really is no valid basis for him to object.”
Carroll is odd. When CNN decided to interview her for its “New Day” morning show shortly after she first made her allegation, she retold the tale she first alleged in her book excerpt published by New York magazine. Throughout the retelling of what she said was a somewhat violent rape, she laughed and smiled. Weird.
She said she met Trump at the Bergdorf Goodman store in New York about 23 years ago and that he recognized her as the Elle advice columnist. Trump asked her to help him pick out something for a “mystery” girl, she said, adding that he shouted, “lingerie!” Trump, she said, found a “see-through body suit” and told her to go put it on. Carroll, who said she was “spinning a comedy scene in my head,” said maybe he should try it on.
Carroll followed Trump into a dressing room and “the minute he closed that door I was banged up against a wall.” Then, “he just went at it,” she said: “It was against my will, 100%.”
“Legally, it was rape,” CNN host Alisyn Camerota said helpfully, before replaying a tape in which Trump said you can grab women “by the p–-.” Asked about her reaction to that tape, Carroll said, “I felt relief. And, I — that’s right. That’s right.”
The shocking accusation appeared just days before Carroll’s latest book — “What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal” — hit bookstores. Trump pointed that out in his statement about the allegation.
“She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation. It should be sold in the fiction section,” Trump said. “There is zero evidence. No pictures? No surveillance? No video? No reports? No sales attendants around? I would like to thank Bergdorf Goodman for confirming they have no video footage of any such incident, because it never happened.”
Then there was this weird exchange when Carroll appeared on “Anderson Cooper 360.” Rape, Cooper said, is a violent assault. Carroll replied, “I think most people think of rape as being sexy.”
“Let’s take a quick break,” Cooper said abruptly.
“They think of the fantasies,” Carroll continued.
“Hmm. We’re, er,” Cooper stammered, “gonna, uh, take a sh — quick break, we’re, if you can stick around we’ll talk more on the other side.”
“You’re fascinating to talk to,” Carroll said.
Cooper, who had just solemnly declared that Carroll was violently raped, laughed.
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