Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. | Brandon Bell/Getty Images
09/27/2022 11:33 AM EDT
A federal appeals court handed Donald Trump an incremental win Tuesday in a libel suit brought by writer E. Jean Carroll over the former president’s denial of her claim that he raped her in a New York department store dressing room in the 1990s.
A divided panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court judge erred when he concluded that Trump, as president, was not covered by a federal law that can be used to shield federal employees from liability over incidents related to their work.
Under Trump, the Justice Department belatedly invoked that law — known as the Westfall Act — in a bid to shut down the defamation case Carroll filed in 2019 stemming from statements Trump issued denying that he raped Carroll, including a declaration that “She’s not my type.” Last year, under President Joe Biden, the Justice Department stirred controversy by reaffirming the department’s earlier stance that Trump was essentially immune from suit because he was acting within the scope of his duties when fielding media questions about the alleged rape at the Bergdorf Goodman in 1995 or 1996.
In Tuesday’s ruling, the majority on the three-judge federal appeals court panel asked a local court in Washington, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, to...
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