DOJ moves to defend Trump in defamation lawsuit
"The law is clear..it is done frequently...."
U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Wednesday defended the Department of Justice’s decision to intervene in a defamation lawsuit by a woman who accused President Donald Trump of raping her decades ago.
The DOJ action replaces Trump's private lawyer and seeks to move the case to federal court, sparking outrage among Democrats, which Barr dismissed:
"The little tempest that’s going on is largely because of the bizarre political environment in which we live…”
In a filing on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court, the Justice Department said Trump acted "within the scope of his office as president" when he denied raping former Elle magazine advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan in the mid-1990s, and denied knowing her.
Trump told The Hill last June, “she’s not my type.”
Carroll has said Trump lied about attacking her, and smeared her reputation.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner tweeted that Attorney General Barr “is acting as the President's personal lawyer instead of fulfilling his duty to work in the public's best interest. He should resign.”
The intervention would also potentially put taxpayers on the hook for defense costs.
The filing came one month after a New York state judge rejected Trump's bid to delay Carroll's case, putting her lawyers in position to have Trump answer questions under oath, perhaps before the Nov. 3 election, and submit a DNA sample.
In a statement Carroll’s lawyer said, “Trump's effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent, and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out.”
