The Justice Department said Tuesday that it will no longer dispute that President Donald J. Trump’s derogatory statements about E. Jean Carroll in 2019 were made as part of his official duties as an attorney. way to be president – a reversal that gives new impetus to her case.
Mrs. Carroll, 79, who won $5 million in damages in The trial accused Mr. Trump of sexual abuse in the 1990s and defamation after he left the White House in January 2021, is now trying to push for a separate lawsuit over comments he made while president. That case has been mired in appeal. If a judge ultimately finds that the previous comments were part of Mr. Trump’s official duties, that case will most likely be dismissed.
The Ministry of Justice has taken the first position under the Trump administration And later under President Bidenthat Mr. Trump acted in his official capacity by calling Mrs Carroll a liar and denying her allegation that he raped her nearly 30 years ago in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store. .
But the department said in a court filing Tuesday that new evidence has emerged since Mr. Trump, 77, left office – including in a recent civil trial in which a Manhattan jury concluded that Mr. Trump was responsible for sexually assaulting Ms. Carroll decades ago.
The new circumstances suggest “that Mr. Trump was motivated by a ‘personal grievance’ stemming from events that occurred years before Mr. Trump’s presidency,” the department’s lawyers said in the filing. profile.
The lawyers noted that Trump’s 2019 statements about Carroll were made through official channels that presidents typically use to communicate with the media. However, they said, “While the claims themselves are made in a work context, the allegations that lead to statements relate to a purely personal incident: a sexual assault committed The allegation occurred decades before Mr. Trump’s presidency.”
Mr. Trump’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment.
Roberta A. Kaplan, Ms. Carroll’s attorney, said in a statement: “We are grateful that the Department of Justice has reviewed its position. We have always believed that Donald Trump made defamatory statements to our customers in June 2019 out of personal hatred, malice and hatred, not as president of the United States.”
Ms Carroll’s pending defamation lawsuit stems from Mr Trump’s words in 2019 after she first publicly accused him of pushing her against a dressing room wall in luxury department store Bergdorf Goodman. in the mid-1990s, pulled down her pants, opened his pants and raped her. Ms. Carroll made her accusations in a book excerpt from New York magazine.
Mr Trump at the time called Ms Carroll’s accusations “completely untrue”, saying he had never met her and that he could not rape her because she was not his “type”.
After Ms. Carroll sued, the Justice Department, then headed by Attorney General William P. Barr, intervened under a law that replaced the government as a defendant when a federal official was sued for conduct official, leading to the dismissal of the case. .
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis A. Kaplan dismissed the department’s move, ruling that Mr. Trump’s comments were “not related to official business of the United States.”
Following a lengthy appeal, the case was eventually returned to Judge Kaplan.
The judge asked the department for a second consideration after Ms. Carroll’s lawyers revised her case to include another round of disparaging remarks Mr. Trump made, this time on CNN on May 10. 5, a day after the verdict in the trial .
Mr Trump, in response to a question from the CNN presenter, called Ms Carroll a “geek” and said her assault claim was “fake” and a “fabricated story” and the civil trial. Her deal was “a fraudulent deal”. .”
In their letter on Tuesday, the department’s attorneys said new evidence they considered to reach the decision included a recent jury verdict, new allegations in the corrected complaint Ms. Carroll’s change, a review of testimony given by Mr. Trump regarding Ms. Carroll’s case. case and the District of Columbia involved appeal the court’s decision.
The lawyers wrote: “There is no longer sufficient basis to conclude that the former president was motivated by a ‘more than insignificant’ desire to serve the government of the United States.
