The Daily Fuckup

Donald Trump’s civil case against E. Jean Carroll was on track for trial on April 25, 2023, and the main pretrial fight that could have pushed it off schedule had already been decided. On February 15, U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan rejected Trump’s late offer to provide a DNA sample in exchange for parts of a DNA report tied to Carroll’s dress, saying he had waited too long to make the issue part of the case. The ruling removed a potential roadblock just days before the parties were due to finish preparing for trial.

That left Trump’s lawyers with a narrower field of pretrial arguments. They had already tried to keep out evidence they considered damaging, including the “Access Hollywood” tape and other material Carroll wanted jurors to hear. But the judge’s February order made clear that the DNA exchange would not be reopened, and that the court was not going to let a late procedural maneuver create a new detour in a case that was already set for a specific trial date.

The underlying lawsuit centers on Carroll’s claim that Trump raped her in a Manhattan department store in the mid-1990s and later defamed her when he denied the allegation publicly. Trump has denied the accusation. The case was one of several civil actions tied to Carroll’s claims and Trump’s responses, and by mid-April 2023 the focus in court had shifted from whether the case would happen to how much of the contested evidence would make it in front of a jury.

That made April 16 less a day of dramatic change than a checkpoint on the way to trial. The schedule was already set, the DNA dispute had already been resolved against Trump, and the remaining fight was over what evidence the jury would hear when the case opened nine days later. In practical terms, the pretrial clock was still running, but the biggest attempt to stop it had already failed.