Munmun Kaur –
Published On: December 05, 2021 at 12:30 IST
On Friday, Federal Appeals Judges questioned whether every remark of a US President is a part of the job. This came up while hearing Donald Trump’s (former President) defamation case concerning his reply to the rape allegation made by writer E. Jean Carroll.
Earlier, during the final months of the Republican Presidency, the Justice Departments had sought to replace him in this case with the US government as the defendant and they stuck by their stand during the Democratic Presidency too.
In 2019 E. Jean Carroll had come forward with an allegation that Trump had raped her in a New York city’s department store’s dressing room in the 1990s. To which Trump had reacted to the media that she was lying and was not his type. He had also denied the photograph of the two calling it a momentary encounter at a social event. Trump’s comment led to a defamation suit being filed against him.
The Justice Department’s lawyer Mark Freeman, on Friday, clarified to the Court that in no way was he justifying Trump’s crude and offensive comments. He said, “I’m here because any president facing a public accusation of this kind, with the media very interested, would feel obliged to answer questions from the public, answer questions from the media”.Carroll’s lawyers described Trump’s comments beyond any job obligation.
The change of swapping the US Government in for Trump as the defendant in the lawsuit would make a huge difference as Federal law makes it difficult to sue U.S. government employees for job-related actions and even if they do slander and libel are kept out of it.
Carroll’s lawsuit seeks a retraction and unspecified damages.