A U.S. attorney general has asked an appellate court in the District of Columbia (Washinghton DC) to reject Donald Trump’s petition and conclude that the former U.S. president acted «outside the scope of his office» when he made defamatory statements against journalist Elizabeth Jean Carroll in 2019.
In an ‘amicus curiae’ brief, prosecutor Karl Racine has asserted that the former president acted «solely to satisfy his personal motives.» «Trump’s latest attempt to evade legal responsibility in a defamation case brought against him must be rejected outright,» he has stated.
In this regard, he has urged, according to a statement posted on his Twitter profile, the appeals court to «follow decades of precedent» in Washington DC and rule that Trump «was not acting in the interest of the United States when he made personal comments against Carroll.»
Elisabeth Jean Carroll filed a lawsuit in 2019 in state court against the former US president for defamation because of the way the New York mogul denied a first rape allegation against her after saying that «she was not his type» and that «he was doing it to sell.»
The journalist wrote in her book ‘What do we need men for?’ that Trump sexually assaulted her in the fitting rooms of a Manhattan store in the mid-1990s. According to her, she met Trump on New York’s Fifth Avenue and they went to a lingerie store to buy a gift for a woman, where the former president allegedly pushed her into a fitting room and raped her.
Carroll made this story known for the first time in this book, published in the digital edition of ‘The New Yorker’. After that, she filed the complaint. Carroll explained at the time that she had taken this step encouraged by the #MeToo movement.
