No shield for Trump in rape accuser's case as court declines to rule
The court will not protect Trump from a defamation lawsuit by E. Jean Carroll, who accuses Trump of rape.
The Washington, D.C., court of appeals on Thursday refused to shield Donald Trump against the first of the two civil defamation suits filed by E. Jean Carroll, a journalist who claimed that the former U.S. President raped the writer nearly 30 years ago.
The District's highest local district court, the Court of Appeals said that it did not possess enough facts to determine whether Trump deserved immunity after he had accused the former Elle magazine journalist in June 2019 of liar about the alleged meeting.
Carroll's lawsuit would have been doomed if a court had ruled that Trump was not acting in his own capacity but as president. The government could be substituted as the defendant and it cannot be sued for libel.
The case was sent back to the second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. The Manhattan Circuit Court of Appeals had asked Washington for advice on local law in September last year.