Trump must remain the defendant in rape defamation claim case filed by E. Jean Carroll, judge rules
President Donald Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll and her lawyers arrive for her hearing at federal court during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in the New York, October 21, 2020.
Carlo Allegri | Reuters
A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an effort by the Department of Justice to have the United States goverrnment replace President Donald Trump in a lawsuit in which he is accused of defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she said he raped her in the mid-1990s.
The DOJ had argued that Trump was acting in his capacity as a government employee when he said Carroll was lying and motivated by money.
Because of that, the DOJ said, the government should be the defendant in Carroll’s civil lawsuit, not the president.
Judge Lewis Kaplan on Tuesday flatly rejected that argument, days after a bizarre aborted court hearing in which a Justice Department lawyer refused to orally argue his claim on the telephone on the heels of being denied entry into the courthouse because of New York coronavirus restrictions.
“The President of the United States is not an employee of the Government within the meaning of the relevant statutes,” Kaplan wrote in an order released in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
“Even if he were such an employee, President Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements concerning Ms. Carroll would not have been within the scope of his employment. Accordingly, the motion to substitute the United States in place of President Trump is denied.”
This is breaking news. Check back for updates.
