Department of Justice lawyers argued on Monday that President Trump should not be personally sued for denying a rape accusation because he refuted the allegation while acting in his official capacity as president, The New York Times reports.
In June 2019, writer E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of raping her in a department store in the 1990s. He publicly rejected this claim and accused her of lying to sell her new book; in return, Carroll filed a defamation suit against him. Last month, Attorney General William Barr intervened in the lawsuit, a highly unusual move, seeing as how the alleged incident took place years before Trump became president.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
How did Trump shift voters to the right and win?Today's Big Question Latino voters led a national shift to the right
-
How do presidential transitions work?The Explainer Donald Trump will take office on Jan. 20 after a two-month process
-
Abortion rights measures go 7 for 10Speed Read Constitutional amendments to protect abortion passed in seven states but failed in three others: Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota
-
ATF finalizes rule to close 'gun show loophole'Speed Read Biden moves to expand background checks for gun buyers
-
Hong Kong passes tough new security lawSpeed Read It will allow the government to further suppress all forms of dissent
-
France enshrines abortion rights in constitutionspeed read It became the first country to make abortion a constitutional right
-
Texas executes man despite contested evidenceSpeed Read Texas rejected calls for a rehearing of Ivan Cantu's case amid recanted testimony and allegations of suppressed exculpatory evidence
-
Supreme Court wary of state social media regulationsSpeed Read A majority of justices appeared skeptical that Texas and Florida were lawfully protecting the free speech rights of users
-
Greece legalizes same-sex marriageSpeed Read Greece becomes the first Orthodox Christian country to enshrine marriage equality in law
-
Trump and his lawyer Alina Habba have a rough day in defamation courtSpeed Read Trump's audible grousing as E. Jean Carroll testified earned him a warning he could be thrown out of court, and Habba showed she 'doesn't know what the hell she's doing'
-
Anders Breivik to testify in prison isolation lawsuit against NorwaySpeed Read Far-right fanatic who killed 77 people in 2011 claims he has received 'inhuman treatment' in custody
