Lawyers for E Jean Carroll want a DNA sample — but Trump is no Bill Clinton

Carroll has publicly claimed the president raped her in the mid-1990s

The lawyers of E Jean Carroll have asked Donald Trump to provide a DNA sample after the celebrated journalist publicly accused the president of raping her. They want to compare it with an unidentified male sample on a dress Carroll wore to a New York department store in the mid-1990s. This is according to an exclusive report from the Associated Press, which was published as the president’s lawyers stood in front of the Senate and defended him against being removed from office.

Carroll claims the president pulled down her tights in a Manhattan dressing room, and raped her. “The Donna Karan coat-dress still hangs on the back of my closet door, unworn and unlaundered since that evening,” she wrote in a New York magazine piece last June. Trump denies this ever happened, and says she’s "not his type".

It will never cease to be unbelievable to write, but this is of course not the first time an American president has been asked for DNA in order to compare with a woman’s soiled dress. In 1998, Bill Clinton was asked to provide exactly this by Ken Starr.

Yes, Ken Starr — Trump’s very own partisan guard dog. The man who – without even a hint of irony – recently claimed that impeachment has become nothing more than “a weapon to be wielded against one’s political opponent.” The man who pushed for Clinton to be removed from office. The man whose report stated that having an extramarital affair was enough for a president to lose his job.

The fact that the same star (pardon the pun) of this ongoing saga was central to proceedings around 20 years ago makes the déjà-vu even more grating. Impeachment, Senate trials, sexual misconduct, DNA samples, soiled dresses — the details swirls round and round, making the cases, on the surface, seem like-for-like.

The fact that the same man can demand a sample from one president and lambast him for his affair then defend another president accused of rape shows just how little politics cares about allegations of sexual misconduct. Whenever a politician is accused of such things, the alleged victims become pawns in a game of chess us girls aren't allowed to play. Their voices are often drowned out in favor of brazen, blatant, embarrassing party politics, with people like Starr leading the pack.

Carroll said in a statement today: “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.”

Trump says Carroll is "totally lying".

These are the facts: A person has credibly accused another person of rape. It doesn’t matter who either of them are — the allegations need to be investigated properly and thoroughly, with no exceptions. But this president has shown time and time again he can worm his way out of anything he likes, and I don’t see why this will be any different.

As Trump heads to his Des Moines rally to presumably try and spin the tumbling economy in his favor and boast about his hugely divisive Middle East ‘peace’ plan, I feel confident in predicting he will avoid giving that DNA sample and be left to continue his presidency, ultimately untouched.