The Justice Department has moved to replace President Trump’s personal lawyers and defend him in a defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, an author who has accused him of rape.
Justice Department lawyers cited the Federal Tort Claims Act in their assertion that Trump should not be defended by his private attorneys and that the case should be transferred from state to federal court, the New York Times reported.
“Because President Trump was acting within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the plaintiff’s claim arose, the United States will file a motion to substitute itself for President Trump in this action” for claims falling under the Federal Tort Claims Act, the filing reads.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, called the move by the Justice Department “shocking.”
“Trump’s effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent,” Kaplan said in a Tuesday statement, “and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out.”
Carroll, 76, filed a lawsuit against the president for defamation in November 2019 after he claimed he never met her. Carroll had alleged that Trump raped her in a dressing room in New York City’s Bergdorf Goodman department store nearly 30 years ago. She is looking to depose Trump and has requested that he provide a DNA sample to compare to genetic material she said is on a dress that she wore during the alleged sexual assault.
The move by the Justice Department comes about a month after New York Supreme Court Justice Verna Saunders ruled that the author’s lawsuit could proceed without waiting for an appeals court to issue a ruling on a separate but related lawsuit filed by another woman who has also accused Trump of defamation after she alleged a sexual assault.
