Trump's legal woes mount as accuser asks court to ban DOJ from defending him: report
According to a report from ABC, attorneys for Donald Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll -- who is suing the ex-president for defamation -- asked a court on Friday night to ban the Department of Justice from defending him as her case goes forward.
Carroll, who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in a department store dressing room in the 1990's has been given the go-ahead to proceed with her suit, but the Justice Department under former Attorney General Bill Barr stepped in on Trump's behalf based upon the fact that he was still in office at the time the suit was filed.
Carroll's attorneys want the DOJ to drop out.
"Carroll urged the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm 'Trump did not act within the scope of his employment as President of the United States when he repeatedly, willfully defamed a private citizen to punish and retaliate against her after she revealed that he had sexually assaulted her decades before he took office," the report states before adding, "Carroll sued the former president for defamation after he accused her of playing politics and lying about an alleged 1990s rape in a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman."
In a statement Friday night, Carroll explained, "Trump has tried and failed repeatedly to get my lawsuit booted," Carroll said in a statement Friday. "Last fall, he had his Justice Department intervene and try to get it dismissed in federal court. He lost. Then, just a week before President Biden's inauguration, Trump's private lawyers and the DOJ joined forces to argue on appeal that when Trump called me a liar who was too ugly to rape, he was somehow being presidential. This is offensive to me."
"I am confident that the Second Circuit will make it clear that no president, including Donald Trump, can get away scot free with maliciously defaming a woman he sexually assaulted," she added.
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