New York: A federal judge on Tuesday rejected President Donald Trump’s request to remove him as a defendant in a defamation case. He is accused of raping a woman in a department store in Manhattan in the 1990s.
U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan’s decision follows the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that the U.S. – and its extension U.S. taxpayers – should replace Trump as a defendant in a lawsuit filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The public prosecutor argued that the United States could come forward as a defendant because Trump was forced to respond to the claim that he was physically and mentally fit for the position. The judge said the law protecting him personally from litigation does not apply to the president because of the work he does because of his employment.
But even if it had been enforced, Trump’s public denial of rape charges would have been outside the scope of his work, Kaplan said. Carroll’s lawyers wrote that “if the world goes crazy, it could be that the woman they sexually assaulted could be verbally defamed by Trump, not the president.”
