Tag: Trump too cheap to pay his own legal bills

Barr slammed for acting as ‘personal henchman’ of Trump as DOJ moves to take over his defense in suit filed by rape accuser

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Democratic lawmakers and legal experts accused Attorney General William Barr of unethically acting as President Donald Trump’s “personal henchman” after the Justice Department on Tuesday moved to take over the president’s defense team in a defamation case brought by journalist and author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused Trump of raping her in the 1990s.

In a claim that baffled and alarmed observers, Justice Department lawyers said in new court filings that the federal government’s intervention in the case is justified because Trump was acting in “within the scope” of his official capacity as president when he accused Carroll of lying about the rape.

Robbie Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, called the Justice Department’s argument “shocking” in a statement late Tuesday, saying it “offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen.” Continue reading.

Justice Dept. intervenes on behalf of Trump in defamation case brought by woman who accused him of rape

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The Justice Department on Tuesday intervened in the defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says President Trump raped her years ago, moving the matter to federal court and signaling it wants to make the U.S. government — rather than Trump himself — the defendant in the case.

In filings in federal court in Manhattan, the Justice Department asserted that Trump was “acting within the scope of his office as President of the United States” when he denied during interviews in 2019 that he had raped journalist E. Jean Carroll more than two decades ago in a New York City department store. Carroll sued Trump over that denial in November.

The maneuver removes the case — at least for now — from state court in New York, where a judge last month had rejected Trump’s bid for a delay and put Carroll’s team back on course to seek a DNA sample and an under-oath interview from the president. It also means that Justice Department lawyers will be essentially aiding Trump’s defense, and taxpayers could be on the hook for any potential damages, if the U.S. government is allowed to stand in for Trump. Winning damages against the government, though, would be more unlikely than in a suit against Trump, as the notion of “sovereign immunity” gives the government and its employees broad protection from lawsuits. Continue reading.