A federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s use of presidential immunity in a bid to dismiss a civil defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
A federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s use of presidential immunity in a bid to dismiss a civil defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The judges found that Trump waived using presidential immunity as a defense by not raising it earlier in the litigation over Carroll’s claim that Trump defamed her when, as president, he denied her allegations of sexual assault. The appeals court also affirmed the lower court’s ruling that rejected Trump’s motion for summary judgement.
“This case presents a vexing question of first impression: whether presidential immunity is waivable. We answer in the affirmative and further hold that Donald J. Trump (‘Defendant’) waived the defense of presidential immunity by failing to raise it as an affirmative defense in his answer to E. Jean Carroll’s (‘Plaintiff’s’) complaint, which alleged that Defendant defamed her by claiming that she had fabricated her account of Defendant sexually assaulting her in the mid1990s.,” the court ruled.
I still cannot believe that people are so shocked to find out so much of the country have been brainwashed to be hateful bigots, ready to yell at their neighbor for wearing a rainbow shirt before they'll yell at Raytheon et. al. for profiting from the few literal genocides the US has weapons going to right now.
There ARE terrible people in the world, and laws don't magically put them behind bars.
He’s the literal embodiment of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth, yet christians would disown family for the chance at sucking him off. It feels like we’ve crossed over into Bizarro world.
"You see, your honor, when I raped this woman it was an official function of the president of the United States! Obviously, presidential immunity must apply!"
Also no lawyer, but my understanding is that it doesn't. The appeals court hasn't ruled that presidential immunity wouldn't be a valid defence, but rather that Trump should have brought it up earlier if he wanted to use it.
Courts often take the most narrow view possible to answer the question. This is an example of that. The only question answered is "Can a president raise the issue of immunity at this stage in the trial", with the answer being "no". They didn't comment on if presidential immunity is valid in this situation. The only precedent set is that presidential immunity must be brought up at te start of litigation.