A federal judge on Tuesday rejected an effort by the Department of Justice to replace the United States government with President Donald Trump in a lawsuit in which he is accused of defaming the writer E Jean Carroll after declaring to have 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 was motivated by money after he said he assaulted her in a locker room at a new york department store
For this reason, the DOJ said, the government should be the defendant in Carroll’s civil lawsuit, not the president
Judge Lewis Kaplan categorically rejected this argument on Tuesday, days after a bizarre aborted hearing in which a Justice Department lawyer refused to make his claim orally over the phone on the grounds of being denied the entry to courthouse due to New York coronavirus restrictions
« The President of the United States is not a government employee within the meaning of the relevant laws, » Kaplan wrote in an order issued to US Manhattan District Court
« Even if he was such an employee, President Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements regarding Ms. Carroll would not have been in the course of her employment. As a result, the motion to replace the United States in place of the President Trump is defeated «
The move comes a week before election day Trump is fighting former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, for a second term in the White House
In one case, a federal judge denied his efforts to bar Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr from executing a grand jury subpoena to obtain Trump’s tax returns from Trump accounting firm plans to ask Supreme Court to overturn federal appeals court ruling upholding subpoena decision
In another case, the Trump organization lost an attempt to delay the testimony of the president’s son, Eric Trump, in an investigation by the New York State Attorney General’s office into the assessment of properties owned by Trump for tax and other purposes ends
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Donald Trump, US Department of Justice, E Jean Carroll
News from around the world – US – Trump must remain defendant in rape libel complaint filed by E Jean Carroll, rules judge