William "Low" Barr, consigliere for crime family boss Donald "Individual 1" Trump, is now using your tax dollars to defend his boss in a defamation suit:
The Justice Department moved on Tuesday to replace President Trump’s private legal team with government lawyers to defend him against a defamation lawsuit by the author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.
In a highly unusual legal move, lawyers for the Justice Department said in court papers that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied ever knowing Ms. Carroll and thus could be defended by government lawyers — in effect underwritten by taxpayer money.
Though the law gives employees of the federal government immunity from most defamation lawsuits, legal experts said it has rarely, if ever, been used before to protect a president, especially for actions taken before he entered office. [snip]
In her suit, Ms. Carroll accused Mr. Trump of defaming her by publicly stating in an interview with The Hill newspaper in June 2019 in the Oval Office that the assault never happened and that he could not have raped her because she was “not my type.” Mr. Trump, according to Ms. Carroll’s suit, also issued an official statement that same month saying she was lying about the alleged assault.A federal judge will have to decide whether to grant DOJ's request to make the U.S. Government, rather than Trump, the defendant in the case. Collecting damages in a case against the government rather than Trump, private predator, is also much more difficult.
So we see the classic Trump lawsuit tactic of stall, delay, and stall some more now being underwritten by your tax dollars, facilitated by the odious Low Barr. Worse, the suit is one of the few brought by one of Trump's sexual assault victims (more than a dozen), a courageous act by E. Jean Carroll, who Trump and Low Barr are further abusing by this delaying tactic. It also raises the issue of Trump evading justice in a state court where he can't wangle a pardon if found guilty.
How's that make you feel about justice in Trumpworld?
BONUS: Lots of outrage being expressed. A tiny sample --
This is, putting
it mildly, an insane position for DOJ. They are doing everything they
can to appear to be Trump’s personal law firm. Its the opposite of the
way the Department of Justice is supposed to behave. https://t.co/4Ma3ZhmDLe
—
Neal Katyal (@neal_katyal) September
8, 2020
So now Barr has
decided (1) that Trump somehow was acting *in his official capacity as
president* when he called E. Jean Carroll a liar for accusing him of
sexual assault, and (2) taxpayers should foot the bill for Trump’s
defense.
Another utter debasement of DOJ by
Barr.
— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) September
8, 2020
(Photo: Carroll and her rapist; Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Glamour/Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
