A federal judge has rejected the Justice Department’s attempt at taking over the defense for Donald Trump in his defamation suit brought on by author E. Jean Carroll, who accused him of raping her in the 1990’s.
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the government’s motion to remove Trump as the defendant and instead list the DOJ as defendant. This is a victory for Carroll, who very likely would have lost her case had the Justice Department assumed the role.
“The undisputed facts demonstrate that President Trump was not acting in furtherance of any duties owed to any arguable employer when he made the statements at issue. His comments concerned an alleged sexual assault that took place several decades before he took office, and the allegations have no relationship to the official business of the United States,” Judge Kaplan wrote. “To conclude otherwise would require the Court to adopt a view that virtually everything the president does is within the public interest by virtue of his office.”
He went on to add, “In that event, Ms. Carroll would be left with no remedy, even if the president’s statements were false and defamatory.”
In Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump, she says that the president defamed her when he denied raping her and said that she was “totally lying”.
Carroll has long accused Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in the 1990’s. Trump has continuously denied raping the woman. He even claimed that he did not know her despite a photo of the two surfacing.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, was pleased with the decision in their pursuit of justice.
“We are very pleased that the federal court interpreted the plain text of Federal Tort Claims Act as not covering President Trump’s false statements about our client, E. Jean Carroll. The simple truth is that President Trump defamed our client because she was brave enough to reveal that he had sexually assaulted her, and that brutal, personal attack cannot be attributed to the Office of the President. We look forward to moving forward with E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case against Donald Trump in his personal capacity in federal court.”
