Donald Trump faces another trial as immunity reversed

Donald Trump is facing trial over comments he made about a writer who accused him of sexual abuse.

Donald Trump faces another trial over comments he made about E. Jean Carroll. Picture: AFP.

Donald Trump accused the US Department of Justice of orchestrating a “partisan sham” as he faced a trial over comments he made about a writer who accused him of sexual abuse.

E Jean Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, was awarded $5 million in May after a jury in a civil trial found that Trump sexually abused her in a New York department store in 1996 and lied about it. Carroll, 79, launched a separate defamation case in 2019 and is now seeking $10 million in damages after Trump, 77, allegedly accused her of lying about the incident, when responding to media questions while he was president.

The justice department (DoJ) previously said Trump had immunity as he made the comments while serving in the Oval Office and the federal government cannot be sued for defamation. It has now reversed its decision, paving the way for a trial in a Manhattan federal court on January 15 next year.

Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination for next year’s election, is already involved in several legal fights, including two criminal trials on charges of retaining classified documents and falsifying business records. “Evidence of Mr Trump’s state of mind, some of which has come to light only after the department last made a certification decision, does not establish that he made the statements at issue with a ‘more than insignificant’ purpose to serve the United States government,” the department said. “Mr Trump was motivated by a ‘personal grievance’ stemming from events that occurred many years prior to his presidency.”

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, said the step showed that the DoJ under President Biden was “politically weaponising the justice system” against Trump. He dismissed the department’s move as “a partisan sham”.

Trump countersued Carroll on June 27, objecting to a CNN interview after the verdict where she said: “Oh yes he did” when asked about the jury finding that he did not commit rape.

Carroll’s lawyers asked a judge on Tuesday to dismiss Trump’s countersuit, calling it an effort to “spin” his trial loss by claiming she caused “significant harm” to his reputation. They said she did not say “oh yes he did” with actual malice, which would mean she knew or had reckless disregard for whether the statement was false. They also said the statement was “substantially true” and therefore not defamatory.

The Times