Will E. Jean Carroll's Dress Be Revealed at Trump's Deposition?

Former President Donald Trump is set to appear in court Wednesday for his deposition in the defamation lawsuit from former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll, who alleges that Trump sexually assaulted her decades ago.

It is unclear if the deposition will focus at any point on the black coat dress Carroll said she was wearing during the alleged assault

Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a New York City department story in the 1990s, and her 2019 lawsuit focuses on her allegation that he defamed her character in denying doing so. She revealed the account of the alleged assault in an excerpt of her memoir that was published in New York Magazine in 2019. Trump vehemently denied the accusations to reporters and in a White House statement after the excerpt was released, saying that Carroll was lying, he didn't know who she was and that "she's not my type."

Since then, Trump has continued to dismiss Carroll's allegations as false and criticize the lawsuit. Last week, he posted on Truth Social that Carroll was a "complete con job" following the news that a federal judge had rejected his bid to pause his deposition on Wednesday.

As for the black coat dress she said she was wearing during the alleged assault, Carroll told MSNBC in 2019 that she saved the garment, leaving it unlaundered, and kept it hanging on the back of her closet door for years.

"So, we have lucky things and this dress was unlucky. So when I hung it up, I wasn't thinking, 'Oh, this is a talisman.' I just never wanted to put it on again because it had horrible memories," she said. "So it just hung there. I didn't bag it up. I didn't do anything, just sat there behind the raincoat. That's it."

Carroll tweeted in late January 2020 that it had been tested and her team had the results. She added that her attorney, Roberta Kaplan of the New York City firm Kaplan Hecker & Fink LLP, had served notice to Trump's attorney to submit a sample of his DNA.

In May this year, a court filing revealed that lawyers for Trump and Carroll had agreed to resume a process for exchanging evidence and getting witness testimony in the lawsuit, CNBC reported. There has been no court ruling yet ordering or excusing Trump from providing a sample.

The court filing said that both sides would have to complete the resumed process in November, paving the way for the judge to potentially order a sample from Trump if his team resists providing one, according to CNBC.

Newsweek reached out to lawyers for Trump and Carroll for comment.