Federal judge rejects Trump’s request in rape defamation case

Judge Lewis A Kaplan rules the president is not an ‘employee of the Government within the meaning of the relevant statues’

E Jean Carroll has accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault after he allegedly attacked her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. (AP)

A federal judge has denied Donald Trump’s request for the United States government to replace him as the defendant of a defamation lawsuit related to a decades-old rape allegation that allegedly occurred in the 1990s. 

Judge Lewis A Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan ruled on Tuesday that Mr Trump was not an “employee of the Government within the meaning of the relevant statues." 

“Even if he were such an ‘employee’, Mr Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements concerning Ms Carroll would have not been within the scope of his employment,” Judge Kaplan wrote in his decision.

The Justice Department attempted to step into the defamation lawsuit and defend the president by arguing what Mr Trump said against writer E Jean Carroll while in office was within the scope of the presidency. This move, if sided on by the judge, would’ve likely ended the proceedings, since the US government cannot be sued for defamation. 

But now, for the moment, the lawsuit can move forward against Mr Trump, as he was deemed a private citizen in the case. 

Ms Carroll has accused the president of raping her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. She went public with the accusation last year, which prompted Mr Trump to deny the attack and call Ms Carroll a politically motivated liar. 

In June 2019, the president said “she’s not my type" when claiming the assault “never happened”. 

His statements against the writer then prompted her to file a defamation lawsuit against the president. 

Last month, the Justice Department intervened in the case, which was filed in the state court of New York, on behalf of Mr Trump. The case was moved to federal court while the agency cited a law that would protect federal employees from litigation that related to their performance on the job. 

This law, the Federal Tort Claims Act, would argue the defamation lawsuit "is really against the United States" meaning “the case must be dismissed because the United States has sovereign immunity,” Judge Kaplan explained in his decision. 

He rejected the notion that the president’s comments about the sexual assault allegations related to his scope of office. 

“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,” the judge wrote.

Ms Carroll and her team have condemned the Justice Department’s attempt to intervene in the case, accusing the department of acting as the president’s personal law firm. 

“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,” Ms Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, wrote this month in a legal brief.

Judge Kaplan, no relation, appeared to agree with the lawyer’s assertion. 

“A comment about government action, public policy, or even an election is categorically different than a comment about an alleged sexual assault that took place roughly twenty years before the president took office,” he wrote. 

In a statement released on Tuesday, Ms Carroll reaffirmed who she was suing in the defamation lawsuit. 

“When I spoke out about what Donald Trump did to me in a department store dressing room, I was speaking out against an individual,” she said. “When Donald Trump called me a liar and denied he had ever me me, he was not speaking on behalf of the United States.” 

“I am happy that Judge Kaplan recognised these basic truths,” she added. 

Her lawyer said in a separate statement: “The simple truth is that President Trump defamed our client because she was brave enough to reveal that he had sexually assaulted her, and that brutal, personal attack cannot be attributed to the Office of the President. Judge Kaplan’s words speak for themselves."

The Justice Department has not yet indicated if it would appeal the ruling.