A federal judge ruled Tuesday morning that the Justice Department is not allowed to replace President Trump’s personal lawyers and defend him in a defamation lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, an author who accused him of rape, which he has vehemently denied.
The judge, Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, rejected the DOJ’s argument that the Justice Department should be allowed to take over the defense of the president.
The Trump administration claimed that the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows the U.S. government to protect federal employees from individual damages claims, should apply in this case.
“The government moves to substitute the United States for President Trump as the defendant. It does so in essence on the theory that this is not truly a lawsuit against President Trump as a private individual.” Kaplan said in a 61-page opinion. “Instead, the government argues, this is really a lawsuit against the United States because Ms. Carroll has sued an ‘employee’ of the United States of America for actions within the scope of his employment.”
Kaplan added, “The President of the United States is not an ‘employee of the Government’ within the meaning of the relevant statutes. 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.”
The judge then specifically shot down the Justice Department’s claims that the Federal Tort Claims Act, which allows the U.S. government to protect federal employees from individual damages claims, should apply in this case.
“While the president possesses all of the executive power of the United States, he is not an ’employee’ within the meaning of the FTCA,” Kaplan said. “The FTCA’s definition of that term does not include presidents.”
Carroll, 76, filed a lawsuit against the president for defamation in November 2019 after he claimed he knew nothing about her and it never happened. Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a dressing room at a famous New York City department store more than two decades ago. Carroll wrote a June 2019 article for the Cut where she claimed that “Donald Trump assaulted me in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago. But he’s not alone on the list of awful men in my life.”
Trump denied Carroll’s claims that same month, including during an Oval Office interview. “I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” the president said while seated behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Trump also said Carroll was “totally lying. I don’t know anything about her. I know nothing about this woman. I know nothing about her. She is — it’s just a terrible thing that people can make statements like that.”
Carroll 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 Justice Department told the court in early September that “the President explained that these accusations were false and that the incident she alleged never happened” and “the Attorney General’s delegate has certified that President Trump was acting within the scope of his office as President of the United States when he publicly denied as false the allegations made by Plaintiff.” The DOJ said “on the basis of this certification, the United States removed the action to this Court pursuant to the Westfall Act” and “pursuant to the same statute, the United States hereby moves the Court to substitute the United States as the party defendant in place of the President.”
Carroll’s lawyer countered in October that “there is not a single person in the United States — not the President and not anyone else — whose job description includes slandering women they sexually assaulted” and “they assert that Defendant Donald J. Trump was acting within the scope of his employment as President when he defamed Plaintiff E. Jean Carroll, a woman he sexually assaulted over twenty years ago, as retaliation for revealing his misconduct.”
Attorney General William Barr defended the Justice Department’s move in September.
“This has to do with something called the Westfall Act. That is an act that provides that when tort cases, state tort cases, are brought against government employees in the executive branch and in the legislative branch, and the tort was allegedly committed in the course of federal employment, the case can be certified for shifting to the federal courts and the United States can be substituted as the responsible party,” Barr said during a September press conference, adding, “This was a normal application of the law, the law is clear, it is done frequently, and the little tempest that’s going on is largely because of the bizarre political environment in which we live.”
“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,” Kaplan ruled Tuesday. “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. 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. The government has provided no support for that theory, and the Court rejects it as too expansive.”
The Justice Department did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
