Everything we know about Trump rape accuser E Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit and what happens next
Journalist claims former president raped her in a department store dressing room in the 1990s
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Former president Donald Trump has been engaged in a years-long legal battle with journalist E Jean Carroll, who filed a defamation lawsuit against him after she publicly accused him of rape.
Ms Carroll filed the suit in November 2019, five months after she came forward with her allegation that Mr Trump raped her in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s.
The suit alleges Mr Trump defamed Ms Carroll when he responded to her allegation by accusing her of lying in a bid to bolster sales of her forthcoming book.
The saga took a turn on Friday, 11 March, when a judge blocked Mr Trump’s attempt to countersue Ms Carroll.
Here’s what you need to know about the case:
What are Carroll’s rape allegations against Trump?
Ms Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle, first aired her allegations against Mr Trump in an excerpt from her book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal that was published by New York magazine in June 2019.
She claimed the rape took place in a dressing room in the high-end Manhattan department store Bergdorf Goodman in 1996 when she randomly bumped into Mr Trump.
Ms Carroll, who was a TV talk show host at the time, said Mr Trump recognised her and they chatted, with him asking her for help picking out a gift for a woman.
She said he took her to the lingerie section of the store and asked her to try on an item in the dressing room, where he allegedly pinned her up against a wall and sexually assaulted her for three minutes.
Ms Carroll said the emergence of the #MeToo movement in late 2017 motivated her to tell her story publicly.
How did Trump respond?
Mr Trump has staunchly and repeatedly denied Ms Carroll’s allegations.
His first denial came at a White House press conference, where he said he had “never met her” and that “she’s not my type”.
He accused her of lying to try to sell her memoir, which featured details of the alleged assault.
“She is trying to sell a new book – that should indicate her motivation,” the then-president said, adding that her book “should be sold in the fiction section”.
Ms Carroll pushed back on his claims, sharing a photo of herself and Mr Trump together with his then-wife Ivana Trump and her then-husband John Johnson at an NBC party in 1987 to show they had met.
What does Carroll’s lawsuit allege?
Ms Carroll’s suit asserts that statements made by Mr Trump in response to the allegations caused her “to suffer reputational, emotional, and professional harm”.
Filed by the civil rights lawyer Roberta Kaplan, it says Ms Carroll wants “to obtain redress for those injuries and to demonstrate that even a man as powerful as Trump can be held accountable under the rule of law”.
As part of the lawsuit, Ms Carroll’s legal team is seeking a DNA sample from Mr Trump that can be compared to DNA from skin cells on the dress she was wearing on the day of the alleged rape.
What’s happened in the case so far?
Ms Carroll’s case against Mr Trump has been slow-moving – both due to coronavirus-related court delays and repeated attempts by the defendant to have it thrown out.
In the fall of 2020, at the tail end of his presidency, Mr Trump’s lawyers sought help from the Department of Justice, which asked the judge to shield him from liability because he was acting in an official capacity as president when he made statements about Ms Carroll. That bid was denied.
In September 2021, Mr Trump lost another request to delay the case as they awaited a decision from an appeals court.
His legal team took up yet another approach in February of this year, when they moved to countersue Ms Carroll.
But US District Judge Lewis Kaplan blocked that bid in a scathing decision on 11 March, where he said Mr Trump’s continuing attempts to delay the 2019 case were “futile” and in “bad faith”.
“The defendant’s litigation tactics, whatever their intent, have delayed the case to an extent that readily could have been far less,” Judge Kaplan wrote.
“Granting leave to amend without considering the futility of the proposed amendment needlessly would make a regrettable situation worse by opening new avenues for significant further delay.”
Letting Mr Trump countersue “would make a regrettable situation worse,” the judge added.
What happens next?
Judge Kaplan’s latest decision paves the way for Ms Carroll’s suit to move closer to trial.
Last month, her legal team announced a forthcoming formal request for Mr Trump’s DNA sample, to compare to evidence found on the dress.
Her lawyers also said they would not be seeking a subpoena for Mr Trump to testify under oath.
A date for the next hearing in the case was not immediately clear.