NEW YORK (AP) — The Justice Department said Tuesday that Donald Trump could be held personally responsible for remarks he made about a woman who accused him of rape — a reversal of its position that Trump was protected because he was president when he made the remarks.
In a letter filed with the judge presiding over a libel suit that columnist E. Jean Carroll filed in Manhattan federal court in 2020, the department says it no longer has “a sufficient basis” to conclude that Trump was motivated in his statements on Carroll’s claims by a more than insignificant desire to serve the United States.
Previously, the department had agreed with Trump’s attorneys that it was protected from lawsuit by the Westfall Act, which provides federal employees with absolute immunity from prosecution for conduct occurring in the course of their employment.
In May, a jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages after finding Trump sexually assaulted her in 1996 at a Bergdorf Goodman store in midtown Manhattan and then defamed her last fall with comments he had made about her and her allegations. While the jury found that Trump had sexually abused Carroll, it dismissed her rape claim.
The lawsuit stemmed from a lawsuit Carroll filed last November after New York State temporarily allowed victims of sexual abuse to file civil lawsuits for attacks that occurred even decades earlier.
In the government’s letter, US attorneys cited the jury’s verdict, Trump’s October deposition and Carroll’s new claims that Trump again libeled her with comments he made at a town hall. on CNN a day after the verdict.
The letter gives new fuel to Carroll’s original libel lawsuit, which had been delayed by appeals over whether Trump could be held liable for statements he made while president.
The initial allegations are expected to go to trial next January and stem from comments Trump made in 2019 after Carroll first went public with his allegations of sexual assault by Trump in a brief.
Carroll’s attorney, Robbie Kaplan, welcomed the DOJ’s submission, saying it was one of the “last hurdles” in the trial.
“We are grateful that the Department of Justice has reconsidered its position,” she said in a statement. and not as President of the United States.
Trump’s attorneys did not immediately comment.
Earlier in the day, attorneys for Carroll filed papers challenging a counterclaim in the defamation lawsuit by Trump attorneys who argued that Carroll defamed him with comments she made after the May verdict. — in part because she repeated statements that he had raped her.
The lawyers wrote that his counterclaim was “nothing more than his last-ditch effort to reverse his loss at trial.”
They said the sexual abuse Trump was found responsible for amounted to rape under some criminal laws and would require him to register for the rest of his life as a sex offender if it was a criminal complaint.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll did.