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NEW YORK-Federal appeals judges on Friday asked if every statement by a U.S. president was part of the job as they weighed in on whether former President Donald Trump could be held accountable in a defamation case related to his response to the allegations. of rape.
Trump and the Justice Department said he was acting in his official capacity when he spoke to the media about the accusation of writer E. Jean Carroll, so they wanted to trade the U.S. government for Trump himself as the defendant in his lawsuit in Defamation.
The change may sound technical, but it can make a big difference. Federal law makes it difficult to sue U.S. government employees for work-related actions, and a law sometimes allows such lawsuits to specifically exclude libel and libel claims. That could prevent Carroll’s case from progressing if the courts decide that Trump is acting as a government worker.
A federal judge denied that request in October. Friday’s panel of judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not give a clear indication of how, or when, they will rule.
But judges have floated many questions about private and public conduct for the commander-in-chief: Is everything a president says work-related? Would it be so if the reporters were there?
Could it be part of public service to say that a woman “I don’t type,” like Trump did? Should presidents always think of their language for fear that losing their coolness could cross a line on legal responsibility?
Trump’s lawyer, Alina Habba, drew the line on “a baseless attack on a citizen” and said that’s not what he did.
“He defended himself here” after Carroll publicly revealed in 2019 his allegation that Trump raped him in the 1990s, Habba said. He argued that the claim essentially questioned his suitability for office.
“When someone says he committed a heinous crime 20 years ago, he has to address it,” he said.
But Carroll’s lawyers said Trump’s response was more than any job obligation.
“A job in the White House is not a promise of an unlimited prerogative to brutalize someone who has been the victim of a previous attack,” attorney Joshua Matz told the court.
Carroll, a former advice columnist at Elle magazine, sued Trump in 2019, alleging he slandered him for denying his allegation that it raped him in a dressing room at a New York City department store in the 1990s.
Trump said he was “completely lying” and “I didn’t type,” among other comments. He said they had never met, dismissing the 1987 photo of the two and their then wives as a brief reunion at a social event.
In the last months of the Republican presidency, the Justice Department sought to replace him as defendant in Carroll’s case. The department retained its position during the administration of Democratic President Joe Biden.
Justice Department attorney Mark Freeman told the appeals court on Friday that he did not want to “defend or justify” Trump’s comments, calling them “rude and offensive.”
“I’m here because any president who faces public accusation of this kind, that the media is very interested in, will feel obligated to answer questions from the public, answer questions from the media,” Freeman said.
After the hearing, Carroll called on the appellate court to reject what he called a “dangerous approach” from the government and Trump.
“In any world Donald Trump took care of the presidency when he said‘ he’s not my type ’and called me a liar,” he said in a statement. “His comments were personal attacks meant to punish me for daring to speak. The truth.”
His lawsuit seeks restitution and unspecified damages.
The Associated Press generally does not recognize people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they choose to tell their stories in public, as Carroll did.
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