President Donald Trump's lawyers are seeking to delay a lawsuit filed by an advice columnist who has accused him of raping her in the 1990s and is seeking his DNA as possible evidence.
Trump attorneys argued in legal papers this week that E. Jean Carroll's defamation suit and "extensive and burdensome" information-gathering requests should be held up until New York's highest court rules on whether another woman can proceed with a somewhat similar suit.
Carroll and the other woman, former "Apprentice" contestant Summer Zervos, claim Trump besmirched them by calling them liars after they, separately, accused him of sexual assault.
In Zervos' case, Trump's lawyers have argued that an incumbent president can't be sued in state courts, and they are asking the state high court to decide.
Credit: Mary Altaffer
Credit: Mary Altaffer
"That threshold issue should be decided" before Carroll's case goes any further, Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz wrote.
If a court agrees, Carroll's suit would be on hold for months.
She questioned Trump's bid to hold off her case, asking Wednesday on Twitter: "What is (Trump) afraid of?"
Requests for comment were sent Thursday to her legal team and Trump's.
A previous Trump lawyer tried unsuccessfully last month to get the case dismissed or put on hold, though his arguments were different.
Carroll, a longtime Elle magazine advice writer, alleged last year that Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She said it happened after they ran into each other by chance and bantered about trying on a bodysuit.
Donald Trump denies charges
Trump said in June that Carroll was “totally lying” and he had “never met this person in my life.” “I'll say it with great respect: No. 1, she's not my type,” Trump said.
While a 1987 photo shows them and their then-spouses at a social event, Trump dismissed it as a moment when he was “standing with my coat on in a line.”
“She is trying to sell a new book — that should indicate her motivation,” he said in one of various statements on the matter, adding that the book “should be sold in the fiction section.”
Carroll said his remarks hurt her career by making readers reluctant to seek her advice.
Carroll sued Trump for defamation in November, saying he smeared her and hurt her career as a longtime Elle magazine advice columnist by calling her a liar. She is seeking unspecified damages and a retraction of Trump’s statements.
Trump’s lawyer has tried to get the case thrown out.
A Manhattan judge declined to do so in January, saying the attorney hadn’t properly backed up his arguments that the case didn’t belong in a New York court.
About the Author
