The attorney general, William Barr, who should be the "people's advocate" and thus independent of the White House, had planned to act as defender of the president, Donald Trump, in a case involving a complaint for rape and defamation.
But a federal judge ruled Tuesday that the Justice Department cannot and should not get involved.
The criminal case arose when
writer Jean E. Carroll sued Trump in November 2019,
accusing him of damaging her reputation when the president declared from his political pulpit that she was a liar.
Carroll reported in June 2019 that Trump sexually abused her in the 1990s in a changing room at the Bergdorf Goodman store in New York, by pushing her against a wall and touching her without her consent.
In response, the president first declared that he did not know Carroll and that he had never seen her in his life, although she showed a photo in which she appears next to him.
Trump later
declared that the woman "is not his type" and that, therefore, what was said "never happened."
Carroll and his defense have also asked the president to
hand over a DNA sample
to match with remains on a dress that Carroll says she was wearing when she was allegedly sexually assaulted by Trump.
Barr stated in September that he would advocate for Trump's defense in the case, arguing that the
Federal Tort Claims Act
allows the Department of Justice to refer a case to federal court if an employee of the Government was acting within his capacity as an official during the incident;
in this case, Trump as president during the alleged defamation of Carroll.
However, federal judge Lewis Kaplan ruled Tuesday that such a law does not apply.
[Prosecutor Barr says in interview that Trump's tweets make his job "impossible"]
"The president of the United States is not a government employee within the statutes relevant to this case," wrote Kaplan, a magistrate at the district court in Manhattan where the case was filed.
"Even if he were an employee as described [in the statutes],
President Trump's allegedly defamatory statements regarding Carroll are not within the scope of his work
. Therefore the motion for the United States to replace Trump as defender is denied. ", indicated the judge.
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At least 18 women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct or sexual violence
for decades, both in the media and in court.
In 2016, a video was revealed in which Trump said that a lawsuit even arose from a woman who, using the pseudonym Jane Doe, accused him of having been and participated in Jeffrey Epstein parties in which both men allegedly committed sexual abuse against her when I was a minor.
[A "cool" guy who enjoys "younger" girls. This is how Trump described this millionaire accused of sexual abuse]
That accusation ended up being withdrawn from the courts, but Carroll's is still pending and only in August did another judge in New York allow the case to advance to the evidence presentation phase, called
discovery
in English.
The magistrate referred to a Supreme Court ruling that
the president does not have absolute immunity against subpoenas of criminal cases at the state level.
As of this news release, Trump had not commented on the decision prohibiting the Justice Department from advocating for him.
With information from CNBC
