US Lawyers Ask 2nd Circuit to Nix Trump from Defamation Suit

NEW YORK (AP) — Justice Department lawyers have asked a federal appeals court to replace President Donald Trump with the United States as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he raped her in the 1990s.

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The government lawyers filed papers late Friday in an appeal of a Manhattan judge's ruling denying the substitution in a case brought by E. Jean Carroll.

She says Trump raped her in the dressing room of an upscale Manhattan department store.

The Justice Department lawyers say statements Trump made after Carroll made her allegations public in 2019 were in his official capacity as president. Carroll's lawyer expects President-elect Joe Biden's Justice Department to scrutinize the case.