A federal appeals court panel debated today whether former President Trump strayed beyond his presidential duties in his aggressive response to a writer’s claim that he raped her in a department store dressing room several decades ago
Former President Donald Trump speaks during a rally on July 3 in Sarasota, Florida. | Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty ImagesA federal appeals court panel debated Friday whether former President Donald Trump strayed beyond his presidential duties in his aggressive response to a New York writer’s claim that he raped her in a department store dressing room several decades ago.
After allowing the case to simmer for nearly a year, the Justice Department stepped in with a bid to effectively shut down the litigation by taking over Trump’s defense and asserting that his answers to press questions about Carroll’s suit were part of his official duties as president. A New Jersey lawyer who has recently taken over much of the portfolio of lingering litigation against Trump, Alina Habba, told the court she, too, was arguing on principle to defend the office of the presidency.
Habba conceded that “an unprovoked attack on a citizen” would be outside the scope of a president’s duties, but Carroll essentially compelled Trump to respond.An attorney for Carroll, Joshua Matz, conceded that if Trump simply denied Carroll’s allegation that would plausibly have been within his duties as president to assure people of his fitness.
Matz suggested it was not at all unusual to have a court or a jury decide what motivated someone to commit a specific act. “It’s actually not weird. We do that in law all the time,” he said.Whether Trump’s response was within the scope of his presidential duties or not is a potentially pivotal issue in the case. If he was, the suit is essentially dead because federal law doesn’t allow suits against federal employees for torts like defamation under those circumstances.
However, in the circumstances of Carroll’s suit, that broad view actually denies her relief because of the rules about suits against the federal government.
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