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Federal law prohibits the prosecution of public servants for defamation, which means that if the move is successful, Ms. Carroll’s claim will be dismissed.
Mr. Barr’s move raised the question of whether Mr. Trump had actually made his comments about Ms Carroll as a government employee – a position that Mrs. Carroll’s lawyers have rejected outright. “There is not a single person in the United States – neither the president nor anyone else – whose job description includes defaming women who have sexually assaulted them,” the lawyers said in last year’s filing.
In October, First Federal Judge Lewis Kaplan of Federal District Court in Manhattan agreed with Mrs. Carroll, blocking Mr. Barr’s move and decided that the lawsuit could proceed against Mr. Trump in his personal capacity. Trump’s comments relate to events that occurred “several decades before he took office”, Judge Kaplan ruled, and “have nothing to do with the official business of the United States.”
Before Mr. Trump left office, the Justice Department appealed Judge Kaplan’s ruling, and many legal observers predicted that the new attorney general, under Biden, would drop the Trump-era allegations.
The memo submitted Monday night was the first time the Department of Justice has looked into the Biden administration, now headed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, in this case. In the memo, State Department lawyers said that when Mr. Trump denied the rape of Ms. Carroll, through the White House press office or in statements to reporters in the Oval Office and on the White House lawn, he was acting within his office. .
The department’s attorneys argued, “Elected public officials can – and often should – address allegations of personal wrongdoing that raise doubts about their suitability for office,” adding, “Officials do not go beyond the confines of their offices simply because they address questions relating to allegations about their personal lives.” .
Reacting to the new dossier, Mrs. Carroll’s lead attorney, Roberta A. Kaplan, said that while the alleged rape was “appalling,” it was “really shocking that the current Department of Justice would allow Donald Trump to get away with lying about it. He-she .”
Mrs. Carroll, in her own statement, said she was angry and insulted.
“While women across the country are standing up and holding men accountable for assault, the Department of Justice is trying to prevent me from getting the same right,” she said.
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