Bill Barr Sinks to New Low, Uses Justice Department to Try to Kill Trump’s Rape Defamation Suit - Vanity Fair

Taxpayers are now funding Trump’s defense against writer E. Jean Carroll, who has accused the president of rape. 

By Bess Levin

September 9, 2020

Since Donald Trump assumed the office of the president, he has made it clear that he believes the Department of Justice works not for the American people but for him personally, and not as an ethical personal lawyer but the kind willing to commit perjury and tamper with witnesses. While Jeff Sessions refused to intervene in the Russia investigation, much to Trump’s impotent rage, in his successor, the president has found an attorney general willing not just to do his dirty work but to do it completely out in the open and without a scintilla of shame. Since taking over the Justice Department in 2019, William Barr has claimed the Mueller report exonerated his boss when it expressly did not; told Congress it’s not a crime for POTUS to demand staffers lie to federal investigators; urged the Supreme Court to help keep Trump’s tax returns under lock and key; instructed the former acting director of National Intelligence not to send an “urgent” whistleblower report to lawmakers concerning the president’s attempt to extort Ukraine; interceded to change the sentencing recommendation for longtime Trump pal Roger Stone; and suggested Trump wasn’t committing a felony when he instructed his supporters to vote twice in the upcoming election. All of which was apparently a prelude to Barr’s most recent maneuver: having the Justice Department try to shield Trump from a defamation lawsuit.

In a motion filed on Tuesday, the DOJ moved to replace the president’s personal team with government lawyers defending him against a defamation suit by writer E. Jean Carroll, who last year accused Trump of raping her at a department store in the ’90s. In court papers, the “justice” team made the bold argument that Trump was acting in his official capacity as POTUS when he denigrated Carroll’s appearance and claimed to have never met her—his go-to line when he’s been accused of something heinous, despite photographic evidence showing it’s not true—and therefore should be defended by the government. Not only does that mean taxpayers would effectively fund Trump’s defense, it all but ensures Trump won’t be deposed before the election. Totally coincidentally, a judge ruled last month that the suit could not be delayed, hence the need for Barr to intervene.

If you’re wondering if perhaps all of this is standard procedure, and whether the government routinely gets involved to help shield presidents from being held responsible for things they (allegedly) did years before becoming president, the answer is of course no; this special arrangement is wholly unique to Trump and his slippery, bootlicking A.G. Per the New York Times:

Though the law gives employees of the federal government immunity from most defamation lawsuits, legal experts said it has rarely, if ever, been used before to protect a president, especially for actions taken before he entered office.

“The question is,” said Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, “is it really within the scope of the law for government lawyers to defend someone accused of lying about a rape when he wasn’t even president yet?” … Mr. Vladeck said that while it was fairly uncommon for the Justice Department to assume the defense of a private matter on behalf of any government official, it was even more extraordinary for department lawyers to seek to shield Mr. Trump’s personal behavior behind a screen of “sovereign immunity.” If the federal judge in Manhattan assigned to the case agreed with the department’s arguments, Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit would effectively be over, Mr. Vladeck said.

Current and former DOJ lawyers told the Times they were shocked that the department had been asked to defend Trump. In a statement, Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, said, “Trump’s effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent, and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out.” Noting that the president could soon be required to provide a DNA sample (to test against the sample on the dress Carroll says she was wearing when he allegedly attacked her), Kaplan added, “Trump instead enlisted the U.S. Department of Justice to replace his private lawyers and argue that when he lied about sexually assaulting our client, explaining that she ‘wasn’t his type,’ he was acting in his official capacity as President of the United States. Even in today’s world, that argument is shocking. It offends me as a lawyer, and offends me even more as a citizen.”

Not surprisingly, the Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, Barr is going to have his hands full for the next few months; in August, Trump suggested in an interview on Fox Business that if the attorney general wants to be “the greatest of all time,” he’ll use taxpayer resources to investigate Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Barr has said neither is under investigation, but if he wants his gold star he’ll presumably get on that in short order.

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