Jean Carroll. If the court agrees, the move would effectively nullify the .3 million jury verdict against Trump, because the federal government cannot be sued for defamation.
Assistant U.S. Attorney General Brett Shumate argued in the filing that the government should be allowed to invoke the Westfall Act, a federal law that grants immunity to employees for civil damages incurred while acting within the scope of their employment. A panel of appeals court judges previously rejected the government’s effort to insert itself as the defendant, noting that both Trump and the Justice Department had waived any right to seek substitution by failing to do so when the case was originally returned to the district court.
The request comes at a deeply unusual stage in the litigation. While Trump was president when he made the statements that Carroll challenged as defamatory, government intervention on behalf of a president after a trial and a jury verdict is rare. The Justice Department’s filing also coincides with Trump’s separate bid to avoid paying the judgment while the Supreme Court decides whether to review the case. Carroll does not oppose a pause in payment, making it virtually certain Trump will succeed in delaying the penalty.
Last week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to reconsider a panel’s ruling that upheld the defamation verdict. Trump has also asked the Supreme Court to overturn a separate $5 million judgment Carroll won after a jury found that he sexually abused and defamed her.
A Lingering Legal Burden
Carroll’s lawsuits have become some of the last major personal legal entanglements shadowing Trump through his second term. Although Trump faced a state criminal conviction and a civil fraud lawsuit in the period between his presidencies, the criminal conviction carried no punishment, and an appeals court tossed the half-billion dollar financial penalty imposed on him in the civil fraud case, though it upheld the underlying fraud ruling.
In total, Trump owes $88.3 million plus interest from the two Carroll cases. The lawsuits stem from Carroll’s allegations that Trump sexually assaulted her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s and then defamed her by denying her account and calling her a liar.
A spokesperson for Carroll’s lawyer declined to comment on the Justice Department’s filing, but pointed to the 2nd Circuit’s earlier ruling that both Trump and the government had waived any right to now move for substitution. The Supreme Court has not yet indicated whether it will take up the case.
