On Tuesday, US District Judge Lewis Kapala denied the DOJ a substitute in President Trump’s defamation suit.
The lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll stems back to the 1990s. According to a book the former Elle columnist wrote in 2019, she was raped by the now-president inside of a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room. Trump wasted no time in defending his name by accusing Carroll of lying for book sales. Carroll is now suing President Trump for defamation of character.
“There is not a single person in the United States whose job description includes slandering women they sexually assaulted. The truth is that our client was brave enough to reveal that Trump had sexually assaulted her. As a result, President Trump defamed her. That brutal, personal attack cannot be attributed to the Office of the President,” Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, said in his statement.
Apparently, the Justice Department thought they found a loophole that would get Trump out of the suit. This came as no surprise to Carroll who claims The Department of Justice has a habitual tendency to act as Trump’s personal law firm. The federal government can’t be sued for defamation. If approved the request to substitute the DOJ with Trump as a defendant would have ended all proceedings.
“While the president possesses all of the executive power of the United States, he is not an ’employee’ within the meaning of the FTCA. The FTCA’s definition of that term does not include presidents.” US District Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled in the 61-page opinion. President Donald J Trump will now be sued personally in the defamation lawsuit.
Here is what E. Jean Carroll Had To Say Proceeding The Decision
“When I spoke out about what Donald Trump did to me, I was speaking out against an individual. When Donald Trump called me a liar and denied that he had ever met me, he was not speaking on behalf of the United States. I am happy that Judge Kaplan recognized these basic truths. As the judge recognized today, the question of whether President Trump raped me 20 years ago in a department store is at ‘the heart’ of this lawsuit. We can finally return to answering that question, and getting the truth out.”
