Judge blasts Trump — rejects 'quid pro quo' offer of DNA in j​ournalist's rape and defamation lawsuit

 David Badash
and
 The New Civil Rights Movement
15 February 2023
The strange case of Carroll v. Trump — an adventure in Wonderland

A federal judge has refused an offer from Donald Trump to provide his DNA to the court in what is being called a “quid pro quo” arrangement the ex-president’s attorney suggested after fighting the request for nearly three years. Trump is being sued for defamation by E. Jean Carroll, the journalist who alleges he raped her in a high-end Manhattan luxury goods store in the 1990’s, then defamed her by denying her allegations, saying she was “totally lying,” and declaring she wasn’t his “type.”

Carroll says she retained the Donna Karan coat she wore when Trump raped her, and that it contains his DNA. She had it tested and provided Trump with the report.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan blasted Trump for demanding Carroll provide the appendix to her DNA report in exchange for her DNA.

“Until February 10, 2023, about ten weeks before this case is set to be tried, Mr. Trump has refused to provide his DNA. Moreover, he has employed litigation tactics the effect and probable purpose of which have been to delay Ms. Carroll’s actions against him – an object that is significant in view of the fact that Ms. Carroll now is 79 years old,” the judge writes, according to a screenshot posted by Law & Crime’s Adam Klasfeld.

“Now,” the judge continues, bulleting his points, “after the time for pretrial discovery of evidence in both cases has expired, three days after Mr. Trump’s latest request for a multi-week trial postponement was substantially denied, one day after the parties filed a joint pretrial order in the first of these cases that makes clear that neither Ms. Carroll nor Mr. Trump intends to call any DNA experts as witnesses in the trial of that case, and on the eve of trial of at least the second-filed of these cases – Mr. Trump suddenly has proposed a deal. He has offered to provide a DNA sample but only on the condition that I require Ms. Carroll first to turn over to him a previously undisclosed appendix to the DNA report – the report that Ms. Carroll obtained and provided to Mr. Trump years ago.”

At Law & Crime, Klasfeld reports, “The ruling means that Trump will not provide DNA sample before trial, ending an evidentiary dispute and talking point brewing for years in Carroll’s rape case.”

The Daily News adds Judge Kaplan also wrote there was no “legitimate basis for this Court to accept Mr. Trump’s offer to provide his DNA sample made contingent on the Court granting his application, which it does not.”

Last week, Case Western Reserve University law professor Cassandra Burke Robertson told Courthouse News, “Never say never, but I don’t see a legal basis for that argument,” referring to the proposal to provide DNA in exchange for the appendix to the report.

“There’s no quid pro quo in discovery. That is just not a legal concept that fits within the discovery paradigm,” Robertson said.

Judge Kaplan agreed, writing on Wednesday, “There is no justification for any such deal. Either Ms. Carroll is obliged to provide the omitted appendix or she is not. Either Mr. Trump is obliged to provide a DNA sample or he is not. Neither is a quid pro quo for the other.”

 
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