Biden DOJ Will Continue To Defend Trump In Private Defamation Lawsuit

Topline

The Justice Department will continue to provide legal defense to former President Donald Trump in a private defamation lawsuit brought against him by journalist E. Jean Carroll who accused him of raping her in the 1990s—a move that was initiated under the Trump administration last year—despite President Joe Biden’s previous criticism of the move on the campaign trail.

Key Facts

On Monday night, the Justice Department filed its response to a federal judge’s order from last fall that deemed that the DOJ could not take over Trump’s defense in the private suit filed by Carroll.

In its filing, the DOJ argued that Trump should be shielded from the lawsuit as he was acting within the scope of his official duties when he denied Carroll’s rape allegations and then accused her of lying.

The DOJ argued that Trump’s response to Carroll’s allegations in a 2019 interview with The Hill, were answers to questions “posed to him in his capacity as President,” and added that public officials can and must address allegations about personal wrongdoing that “inspire doubt about their suitability for office.”

The Justice Department’s filing was critical of Trump’s conduct in the interview, noting that his response to the serious allegations was “crude and disrespectful.”

However, the department argued that the case does not concern whether Trump’s statements were appropriate; instead, it should be dismissed as Trump was a federal employee at the time and therefore immune from such lawsuits.

Since taking office, Biden has noted several times that he does not intend to interfere with the department’s functioning and the White House told Buzzfeed News that it was not consulted by the DOJ on the decision.

Crucial Quote

“The DOJ’s position is not only legally wrong, it is morally wrong since it would give federal officials free license to cover up private sexual misconduct by publicly brutalizing any woman who has the courage to come forward,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, told the Wall Street Journal.

Tangent

While the Biden Justice Department under Attorney General Merrick Garland inherited several Trump-era lawsuits, Carroll’s defamation case is one of few that Biden has directly commented on. Several people, including Biden, had sharply criticized the DOJ’s decision last fall for getting involved in Trump’s defense in a private lawsuit. During a town hall event in October Biden noted that the Carroll case was an example of Trump abusing his power by trying to use the DOJ as his “own law firm.”

Key Background

In June 2019, prior to the release of her book, which covers the alleged incident, Carroll wrote in a New York magazine article that Donald Trump had raped her in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman, a luxury department store in New York City in the 1990s. Trump denied the allegations and even denied meeting Carroll. Later in his interview with The Hill, Trump said “she’s not my type…it never happened,” and then said that Carroll was “totally lying.” In November 2019, Carroll filed a defamation suit against the former president alleging that Trump’s statements had damaged her reputation, substantially harmed her professionally, and caused emotional pain. In September last year, the DOJ intervened in the case on behalf of Trump and sought to have the U.S. government be named as a plaintiff in the case instead of Trump personally. This would have effectively blocked the suit as under existing laws the federal government can’t be sued for defamation and the DOJ argued that Trump’s retorts against Carroll were within the scope of his duty as a federal government employee. A New York Federal court however dismissed the DOJ’s argument and prevented it from substituting the U.S. government as the defendant instead of Trump. The case is now in front of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

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