Trump rape case: After 3 years, the former president finally agrees to submit DNA. Here's why it could be too late.

• Trump is now willing to submit a DNA sample for his civil rape case in NY, new court papers say.
• The deadline for new evidence has passed, so it's unclear if the sample will come into play at trial.
• Trump's offer, first reported in the Daily Beast, came three years after he was first asked.

Former President Donald Trump has agreed to undergo DNA testing as part of his defense in an upcoming civil rape trial in New York federal court.

Trump's sudden willingness to submit a DNA sample — something requested by his accuser for three years — was confirmed in court papers Friday. It was first reported by the Daily Beast.

"Mr. Trump is indeed willing to provide a DNA sample for the sole purpose of comparing it to the DNA found on the dress at issue," the filing says.  

But the former president is also demanding that his accuser turn over the sample it would be compared to.

"Mr. Trump's DNA is either on the dress or it is not," the filing says, and the accuser should be willing to come forward with her evidence.

"'Why is Plaintiff now hiding from this reality?" the filing says. "We surmise that the answer to that question is that she knows his DNA is not on the dress because the alleged sexual assault never occurred."

Trump has not set a timetable for testing, and it's unclear if a sample, if ultimately given, would be allowed in as evidence in the case, which goes to trial in two months.

The deadline for exchanging evidence has long passed, and Judge Lewis A. Kaplan has complained multiple times about Trump's side dragging the case out with delay after delay. 

Trump's accuser, writer E. Jean Carroll, would also have to agree to the late evidence coming into the case.

Carroll alleges Trump assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. She kept the dress she says she was wearing at the time, and early 30 years later, lab tests recovered the skin cells of a yet-unidentified male on one of its sleeves.

Carroll's lawyers said they planned to respond to Trump's filing on Friday. They first asked for a Trump DNA sample in January 2020. Trump's lawyer, Joe Tacopina, declined to comment on  Friday's filing. 

Trump's legal team, which recently took on Tacopina as new lead lawyer, appears to be changing tack in hopes of undermining Carroll's contention that Trump's DNA may be on her dress.   

Letting Trump's DNA into the case would be an 11th-hour roll of the dice for both sides.

It's risky for Trump, who denies even knowing Carroll. And it's risky for Carroll, who has publicly touted the dress's importance and who, absent a Trump sample, would be able to ask jurors "What does Trump have to hide?"

"This sample could be the key to the case," said defense lawyer Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former chief assistant with the Manhattan district attorney's office.  

"He's saying it never happened," said Friedman Agnifilo. "So if it is his DNA, a match would be so powerful to her case." 

On the other hand, a "no match" result could cripple Carroll's side.

"She's come out and said, 'I saved the dress, I have a sample,' and so she's kind of stuck with that. The minute you introduce science into this and say 'I have evidence,' if the evidence isn't there it's hard to say 'you still have to believe me.' It becomes a harder mountain to climb," she added.

"If it's not his DNA, or it's inconclusive because it's degraded, then it potentially could clear him. This could be Trump's version of 'If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.'"

Carroll, a longtime Elle advice columnist, says she kept the Donna Karan coat dress hanging in her closet for decades — and never wore it again until posing in it on the cover of New York magazine in June 2019, when she first went public with her rape accusation in an essay for the outlet.

A few months later, Carroll sued Trump for defamation when he loudly and repeatedly denied her story. Trump said she wasn't his type and claimed he had never even met her, despite photographic evidence to the contrary. 

Carroll sued Trump again last year, for a new claim of defamation and for the alleged rape itself, after New York passed a law temporarily allowing the filing of sexual assault lawsuits in cases where the statute of limitations had expired.

Both lawsuits have April trial dates and may end up being combined and tried at the same time.

The judge seems intent on keeping to schedule. During a scheduling hearing in the case on Tuesday, Trump's lawyer asked for a six-week extension on Carroll's second lawsuit, but Kaplan only gave him one.