US justice department seeks to defend Trump in lawsuit tied to rape allegation
The US justice department is seeking to take over Donald Trump’s defense in a defamation lawsuit from a writer who accused him of rape, and federal lawyers asked a court on Tuesday to allow a move that could put the American people on the hook for any money she might be awarded.
After New York state courts turned down Trump’s request to delay E Jean Carroll’s suit, justice department lawyers filed court papers on Tuesday aiming to shift the case into federal court and to substitute the US for Trump as the defendant. That means the federal government, rather than Trump himself, might have to pay damages if any are awarded.
Related: ‘I accused Donald Trump of sexual assault. Now I sleep with a loaded gun’
The filing complicates, at least for the moment, Carroll’s efforts to get a DNA sample from the president as potential evidence and to have him answer questions under oath.
Justice department lawyers argue that Trump was “acting within the scope of his office” when he denied Carroll’s allegations, made last year, that he raped her in a New York luxury department store in the mid-1990s. She says his comments – including that she was “totally lying” to sell a memoir – besmirched her character and harmed her career.
“Numerous courts have recognized that elected officials act within the scope of their office or employment when speaking with the press, including with respect to personal matters,” the DoJ attorneys wrote.
The White House echoed the argument. “Last year, the president vehemently denied allegations made by Jean Carroll about a supposed incident from some 25 years ago,” a senior White House official told the Guardian in a statement. “The president was acting within the scope of his office when he publicly responded to these false allegations.”
Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, called their argument “shocking”.
“Trump’s effort to wield the power of the US government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent,” she said in an email to the Guardian.
Carroll told the Guardian by email: “Today’s actions demonstrate that Trump will do everything possible, including using the full powers of the federal government, to block discovery from going forward in my case before the upcoming election to try to prevent a jury from ever deciding which one of us is lying.”
It will be up to a federal judge to decide whether to keep the case in federal court and to allow the US to become the defendant.
Carroll is trying to get a DNA sample from Trump to see whether it matches as-yet-unidentified male genetic material found on a dress that she says she was wearing during the alleged attack and didn’t wear again until a photo shoot last year.
Her suit seeks damages and a retraction of Trump’s statements.
