E. Jean Carroll is offering to delay collecting testimony and DNA evidence in her defamation case against President Trump, whom she has accused of sexual assault, if he gives up other records related to the case.
The offer comes as the Department of Justice appeals a ruling from District Judge Lewis Kaplan, in which he found that the president is not an employee of the government and that Carroll’s allegations are not connected to actions in his official capacity.
Lawyers for Trump have argued that proceedings should be halted pending the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals’s decision, arguing that the president would suffer irreparable harm from discovery.
In a legal filing on Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers argued that discovery in the case should continue while the appeal is ongoing. However, they said depositions and Carroll’s request for a DNA sample can wait until the 2nd Circuit issues a ruling.
However, Carroll’s lawyers also argue that the president has already “engaged in substantial document discovery” when the case was still in state court, contradicting the claim of irreparable harm.
The filing says the case is “unlikely to involve many documents and any burden on President Trump’s official duties will end when he leaves office in a few weeks.”
A footnote at the end of that sentence takes aim the president’s assertions that he won the 2020 election, saying “the Court need not indulge such dangerous nonsense in deciding whether to stay proceedings here.”
In June 2019, Carroll published her allegation that Trump sexually assaulted her in a New York department store dressing room in the 1990s. Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations, leading her to sue him for defamation.
She has requested a DNA sample to compare against genetic material from what she was wearing at the time.