A federal appeals court in Manhattan handed former President Donald Trump a procedural victory Tuesday in a defamation lawsuit, after famed columnist E. Jean Carroll claimed that Trump had raped her in the 1990s.
In a two-to-one decision on Sept. 27, the panel on the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a lower court erred when it ruled that Carroll could sue Trump for defamatory statements during his presidency, given that a federal law, known as the Westfall Act, shields government employees from liability in work-related incidents.
Carroll, 78, sued Trump in 2019, claiming the Republican sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s in a dressing room at a Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan. Because the alleged attack happened decades ago, Carroll was originally barred from suing over sexual battery, pushing her to sue for defamation over allegedly disparaging comments Trump made about the rape allegation….