The Department of Justice has come to its senses. The DOJ has decided it does not have "evidence to conclude" defaming a woman that one has previously sexually assaulted is just the President of the United States doing their job. This decision leaves the Orange Menace to face trial in E. Jean Carroll's original defamation case.
Trump's mountain of legal problems is ever-deepening. While the country is waiting to see what shenanigans Federal Judge Aileen Cannon gets up to in the document espionage case, a Georgian grand jury is being empaneled to review Trump's attempt to steal the election.
The Justice Department said it will decline to shield former President Trump from a defamation claim by New York writer E. Jean Carroll, reversing course on one of its most controversial decisions during the early stretch of the Biden administration.
The department notified attorneys for Trump and Carroll of the move late Tuesday afternoon. In papers filed with a federal judge in New York, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton said DOJ determined that it "lacks adequate evidence to conclude" Trump was serving the federal government and acting within the scope of his employment when he denied he had sexually assaulted Carroll and made other derogatory remarks about her.
The change in course is a significant one. If the Justice Department had decided Trump were covered under a law called the Westfall Act, he would, in essence, have secured immunity from the civil claims. That's because federal workers are shielded from those kinds of lawsuits so long as the workers are acting within the bounds of their jobs.
Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, said she was grateful for the new position from the department.
