Judge signals defamation lawsuit against Trump to move forward

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• A federal judge ruled to move forward with columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump as a telephone conference would be set on December 11.
• The camp of Caroll has welcomed the ruling, saying that they are looking to move forward with the case.
• Last month, Judge Lewis Kaplan ruled against the Justice department’s request to intervene on behalf of Trump.

On Thursday, a federal judge moved to proceed with the defamation lawsuit of columnist E. Jean Carroll’s against President Donald Trump. A telephone conference for the case will be scheduled for December 11.

In September, the Justice Department requested to take the place of Trump as the accused. Judge Lewis Kaplan, however, declined the department’s motion to interfere last month.

“The president of the United States is not an ’employee of the government’ within the meaning of the relevant statutes,” Kaplan wrote in his ruling. “Even if he were such an ’employee,’ President Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements concerning Ms. Carroll would not have been within the scope of his employment.”

Attorney General William Barr claimed that the department’s interference was not illegal.

“The little tempest that’s going on is largely because of the bizarre political environment in which we live,” he argued.

According to Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s legal counsel who is not related to the judge, the proceedings came as a victory as they push to move forward.

“We look forward to finally moving ahead with discovery in the case, which has been on hold since Trump filed his motion for a stay last February, and look forward to the initial conference in E Jean Carroll’s case on Dec. 11, if the parties cannot agree on a schedule,” the lawyer said in the statement to ABC News.

Legally, federal employees could be absolved against most defamation lawsuits. In this case, though, Judge Kaplan noted that the law protecting government officials cannot be applied to Trump because he was being charged outside of his capacity as president.

In her 2019 book titled ‘What Do We Need Men For?’, Carroll shared that over three decades ago, Trump had sexually assaulted her.

Source: The Hill