There’s no reason for the Department of Justice to stick to Bill Barr’s inexcusably bad plan.
President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has doubled down on defending former President Donald Trump from E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit. The department’s decision is flat wrong. It serves no sound legal or institutional purpose for the department to defend Trump in this situation. In case it hasn’t been at the top of your mind, the case arose from Carroll’s allegation that Trump raped her, long before he became president. While president, Trump responded to Carroll’s allegations by saying that he didn’t know her, that she was “not my type,” and that the incident never happened. He also said that she was lying for personal gain and that she was trying to “get publicity” or “sell a book.” In response, Carroll sued Trump in state court for defamation. Under the 1997 Clinton v. Jones precedent, a sitting president may be sued civilly for wrongs he has committed in his personal capacity. But Barr’s Justice Department intervened in the lawsuit, arguing that Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he made the comments about Carroll. If that intervention were to succeed, the case would shift to federal court and become a suit against the government, not against Trump personally. At the time Barr intervened, it was clear how bad Barr’s decision was. Trump wasn’t acting in any professional capacity when he impugned Carroll’s honesty and her motives. He was private Donald Trump defending the conduct of private Donald Trump. And so a federal district court rejected the Department of Justice’s request to intervene.
