Here’s how Trump aims to make taxpayers foot the bill for his E. Jean Carroll settlement
The Daily Beast reports the Justice Department is helping President Donald Trump with his personal appeal of a defamation award and leaving the attorney fees with taxpayers.
In 2023, a federal jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse against advice columnist E. Jean Carroll and ordered him to pay her $5 million. Instead, Trump continued to deny all allegations and appealed both cases. Later, in 2024, a a different federal jury ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million in damages for defamatory comments he made denying allegations of sexual abuse that was already affirmed by the 2023 jury.
Trump is still appealing that order, only now the Justice Department has moved to substitute itself as defendant in the Carroll v. Trump defamation case.
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“... [T]he United States and the individual Defendant-Appellant Donald J. Trump jointly move to substitute the United States for President Trump pursuant to a certification issued under the Federal Torts Claims Act, as amended by the Federal Employees Liability Reform and Tort Compensation Act of 1988,” according to the April 11 submission.
This is not the first time Trump has tried to use federal resources to save money. In 2020, the Department of Justice attempted to substitute the U.S in the columnist’s defamation suit under the theory that Trump was acting in his capacity as president when he “defamed” Carroll. That case, filed in New York state court in 2019, led to a court demand for Trump to submit to DNA testing when taxpayer-funded U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr tried to intervene by making the U.S a party to the suit.
But Judge Lewis Kaplan knocked the feds for trying to re-docket the Carroll v. Trump suit as “Carroll v. US,” and ordered it returned to Carroll v. Trump. He also eventually ruled Trump was acting in his personal capacity when he defamed Carroll.
With Trump allies back in charge of the Justice Department this year, however, Attorney General Pam Bondi has opined that the DOJ cannot deprive “the President of the benefit of his lawyers.”
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“The responsibilities of Department of Justice attorneys include … vigorously defending presidential policies and actions against legal challenges on behalf of the United States,” Bondi wrote, and promised to fire attorneys who refuse to fall on grenades to protect Trump.
“It is … the policy of the Department of Justice that any attorney who … declines to sign a brief or appear in court, refuses to advance good-faith arguments on behalf of the Administration, or otherwise delays or impedes the Department's mission will be subject to discipline and potentially termination, consistent with applicable law.”
Read the dull Daily Beast story here (subscription required).
