E. JEAN CARROLL: The real story behind Trump’s sudden willingness to submit to a DNA test
E. Jean Carroll has been trying to get a hold of Donald Trump’s DNA ever since her litigation began against the former president who she said had sexually assaulted her in a Saks Fifth Avenue dressing room.
Carroll believes that Trump left behind enough evidence of the crime she alleges to prove that her accusations are valid, but has been unable to obtain the genetic material that would prove Trump’s guilt in both the defamation suit and the newly available path provided by New York State to prosecute sexual assaults that had otherwise been beyond the statute of limitations.
Now, according to an article in The Daily Beast, Trump’s attorneys are dangling the prospect that Trump will allow a sample of his DNA to be collected to compare to what may be found on the black coat dress that Carroll wore when the alleged assault took place.
Trump’s refusal to submit any of his genetic material to be tested made his claims of innocence of the assault about as believable as, well, anything that pours forth from his malevolent, mendacious mouth.
The newfound willingness to cooperate on Trump’s part is not, however, all that it may seem to be.
“Notably, the deadline for opposing sides to exchange evidence has already passed, convenient timing that’s drawing criticism that Trump’s offer is a trap,” according to Jose Pagliery in The Daily Beast.
The fact that that deadline has passed would allow Trump’s lawyers to tell the jury that the genetic evidence was offered to the opposing side, but that the DNA was never tested, creating an impression that would be the exact opposite of the endless delaying tactics that the disgraced former president and his legal team have engaged in.
“It sounds like a continuation of the dilatory tactics that Trump uses all the time,” said Albert Scherr, one of the top forensic DNA evidence experts and a University of New Hampshire law school professor. “As a general rule, Trump’s lawyers in every venue have the strong propensity to delay and delay and muck things up.”
If Carroll’s lawyers had hoped to point to Trump’s refusal to submit DNA as evidence of “consciousness of liability,” this new offer could undercut that strategy.
With the deadline that was set by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan to introduce any new evidence having passed, it appears as if Trump’s offer is just one more tactic to try and delay any reckoning of his guilt, part of his long-standing abuse of the legal process to avoid accountability for his actions.
It doesn’t appear like Trump’s stalling tactics will prevent the case from going to trial on its scheduled date of April 25th, however, so both sides will have a verdict soon enough
Original reporting by Jose Pagliery at The Daily Beast.
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