A federal appeals has tipped the balance in Donald Trump’s favour in a long-running defamation suit from writer E Jean Carroll, who accused the former president of raping her in a New York department store in the 1990s.
On Tuesday, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled in a split decision that Mr Trump was a government employee when denied the rape accusation and accused Ms Carroll of inventing it to sell books, a determination that’s key to his claim that he’s protected under federal law shielding government employees from liability related to their duties of office.
The 2-to-1 decision, however, avoided passing judgment on whether Mr Trump’s comments were themselves defamatory, and instead asked a Washington, DC, appeals court to weigh in on whether such remarks from a government employee were protected under district law.
Determining that question, Judge Guido Calabresi wrote in the majority ruling, is "of extreme public importance” because Washington law on the matter is "genuinely uncertain.”
In a 2019 excerpt from Ms Carroll’s book What Do We Need Men For? A Modest Proposal, the columnist accused Donald Trump of raping her in 1995 or 1996 in the dressing room of the Bergdorf Goodman department store in midtown Manhattan.
In response, Mr Trump, still in the White House, told reporters he didn’t know Ms Carroll, declaring, “She’s not my type,” and alleging the rape allegation was knowingly false.
In a dissenting opinion on Tuesday’s ruling, Judge Denny Chin argued Mr Trump isn’t protected from legal action in the case, because the former president’s comments weren’t part of his official duties and "Carroll’s allegations plausibly paint a picture of a man pursuing a personal vendetta against an accuser."
"In the context of an accusation of rape, the comment ‘she’s not my type’ surely is not something one would expect the President of the United States to say in the course of his duties," Judge Chin wrote.
Mr Trump’s lawyers celebrated the ruling.
“We are extremely pleased with the Second Circuit’s decision today,” attorney Alina Habba said in a statement. “This decision will protect the ability of all future Presidents to effectively govern without hindrance. We are confident that the D.C. Court of Appeals will find that our client was acting within the scope of his employment when properly repudiating Ms. Carroll’s allegations.”
Ms Carroll’s lawyer, meanwhile, told Politico she was “confident” the DC appeals court would agree with Judge Chin’s “powerful” dissenting opinion.
Beyond being one of numerous serious accusations of sexual misconduct against Mr Trump, the case has raised a number of thorny legal and ethical questions.
In 2020, the Justice Department attempted to substitute itself as the sole defendant in the case, which would have the effect of ending Ms Carroll’s claims because of the federal government’s legal immunities.
In 2021, the Biden administration continued on this line of legal reasoning.
“Sometimes we have to make decisions about the law that we would never have made and that we strongly disagree with as a matter of policy,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at the time.
Two related suits against Mr Trump will probe similar questions as Ms Carroll’s defamation suit.
Another case before the DC appeals court also deals with immunity questions, as the suit seeks to hold Mr Trump liable for the conspiracy of the January 6 Capitol riot.
In November, Ms Carroll plans to sue Mr Trump directly for the alleged rape, under a new state law in New York allowing victims of sexual misconduct a one-time window to sue their aggressors outside of the normal statute of limitations.
The former president currently faces 20 major investigations and lawsuits related to his conduct before and during his time in the White House, according to an Independent analysis.
