The Justice Department (DOJ) said Tuesday it will no longer defend former President Trump as being immune in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit.
The DOJ had previously certified that Trump was acting in the scope of his employment as president when he made allegedly defamatory statements denying Carroll’s account that Trump sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s.
But now the department is reversing its position, leaving Trump on the hook for any potential damages.
The DOJ cited the legal battle that ensued as to whether their original certification was proper, which held up the case for months. It bounced between multiple courts in New York and Washington, D.C., ending with no clear resolution.
Citing the recent rulings, the DOJ wrote it “has determined that it lacks adequate evidence to conclude that the former President was sufficiently actuated by a purpose to serve the United States Government to support a determination that he was acting within the scope of his employment when he denied sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll and made the other statements regarding Ms. Carroll that she has challenged in this action.”
Carroll’s second lawsuit went to trial in May, in which a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing the longtime advice columnist and later defaming her by denying her story. Those claims did not involve Trump’s time as president, so they were not held up by the immunity issues. Trump is appealing the verdict.
But Carroll’s first lawsuit, which only includes claims of defamation, has not yet gone to trial.
Under the Westfall Act, the DOJ had attempted to step in and declare Trump immune in that suit by certifying that he made the statements in question in the scope of his employment as president.
The suit at the time revolved around Trump’s initial denials when Carroll came forward publicly in June 2019, comprising a written statement given to reporters, comments Trump made on the South Lawn and an interview he gave The Hill at the White House three days after the allegation was first published.
But since the jury sided with Carroll, her first lawsuit has expanded.
One day after the jury’s verdict, Trump appeared for a CNN town hall and again denied Carroll’s story. Carroll proceeded to add those comments to her original lawsuit.
The DOJ noted the verdict and the addition as another reason to step away from its position.
“These post-Presidency statements, which were not before the Department during the original scope certification in this case, tend to undermine the claim that the former President made very similar statements at issue in Carroll out of a desire to serve the government,” the department continued.
Robbie Kaplan, Carroll’s lawyer, applauded the DOJ in a statement.
“We are grateful that the Department of Justice has reconsidered its position,” she said. “We have always believed that Donald Trump made his defamatory statements about our client in June 2019 out of personal animus, ill will, and spite, and not as President of the United States. Now that one of the last obstacles has been removed, we look forward to trial in E Jean Carroll’s original case in January 2024.”
“This witch-hunt, funded and carried out by woke, radical, liberal Democrats is now even more exposed as a partisan sham, as the Department of Justice has broken with long-standing tradition in a desperate attempt to perpetuate this hoax. The corrupt Biden Administration is politically weaponizing the justice system against President Trump because he is the overwhelming favorite to defeat Joe Biden and take back the White House,” Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, said in a statement.
After Carroll expanded the suit, Trump also countersued the longtime advice columnist, alleging she defamed the former president during a recent CNN appearance of her own.
In court documents filed earlier Tuesday afternoon, Carroll’s lawyers called it a “tit for tat” as they asked the federal judge overseeing their legal battles to dismiss Trump’s countersuit as procedurally improper and for failing to state a claim.
“While that might read like an article penned by Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker or by a writer at the Onion, it’s actually the theory of the counterclaim that Trump now purports to assert in this action,” Carroll’s lawyers wrote.
“But here in federal court, where logic and reason rather than satire prevail, it is clear that Trump’s new counterclaim for defamation should be dismissed with prejudice,” they added.
Updated 8:22 p.m.