Former President Donald Trump is asking a U.S. district judge in New York to block testimony from two women who previously accused him of sexual assault in an upcoming defamation trial.
E. Jean Carroll, a columnist for Elle, alleges Trump raped her in the 1990s and filed a defamation suit against him after he denied her allegation. The case is slated to go to trial in April, and Carroll has indicated in court filings she plans to call two women who came forward with allegations against Trump in 2016.
Carroll intends to call Natasha Stoynoff and Jessica Leeds to testify in the trial against Trump. Stoynoff alleges Trump sexually assaulted her while she was preparing to interview him and his wife for People magazine in 2005, while Leeds alleges Trump kissed and groped her while on a flight in the 1980s.
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Attorneys for the former president argue the witnesses should not be brought to the trial because the allegations, which Trump denies, are not related to Carroll’s case. In 2016, then-first lady Melania Trump demanded a retraction of Stoynoff’s allegations published in People.
Donald Trump’s motion to deny bringing forward the women also included a request seeking to prevent the use of the “Access Hollywood” tape in which the former president was recorded gloating about groping women without their consent.
The two women should be brought forward because it “evidences Trump’s modus operandi of forcing himself on nonconsenting women,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote in a 46-page filing.
Her attorneys also requested that Donald Trump’s lawyers not raise any inquiry related to DNA at the trial.
Carroll initially sought a DNA sample from Donald Trump, but the former president refused. However, his attorneys shifted course last week by agreeing to offer a DNA sample in exchange for Carroll turning over additional documents to the court. A judge presiding over the case denied the offer as “too late,” in part because the offer was made after the case concluded its process of exchanging evidence, known as discovery.
Carroll filed a separate lawsuit against Donald Trump last November after a New York law went into effect allowing sexual assault victims to sue alleged abusers after the statute of limitations previously expired. Donald Trump’s legal team contends the law violates the New York Constitution.
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The defamation trial is slated to begin on April 25 and is expected to last between five and seven days in the Southern District Court of New York. Donald Trump has denied Carroll’s allegations.
The Washington Examiner contacted an attorney for the former president.
