In an interview with Vice, former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade suggested lawyers for writer E. Jean Carroll amend her civil lawsuit accusing Donald Trump of defamation to include a rant he posted on social media last week that bolsters her case.
As Vice's Greg Walters wrote, citing the former president's latest attack of Carroll could "blow a hole" in his defense and set his lawyers back on their heels.
With Walters labeling Trump's latest war of words a "a really bad idea," he added, "Trump’s lawyers have argued for months that he can’t be held personally responsible in the suit because his denial took place during his presidency, and therefore fell under his official duties as president. But by repeating his denial last week in an online tirade posted on his social media site, Truth Social, and blasted out in an emailed statement, Trump essentially re-upped the activity at the heart of the lawsuit—at a moment when he’s not the president anymore."
At issue was Trump's response after he was notified that he was expected to sit for a deposition this week, at which point he raged that the lawsuit was a "complete con job."
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He then tacked on a broadside aimed at Carroll, writing, "It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years. And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!”
Legal expert McQuade concurred and offered up some free advice to help Carroll's lawyers beef up their case.
"She [Carroll] should amend her complaint to include an additional count based on the new statement,” she suggested. “Because Trump is no longer president, this statement was most certainly not made in the scope of his federal employment.”
Attorney George Conway, the husband of longtime Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, agreed that the former president made his odds in the case worse by not remaining silent.
Taking to Twitter, he wrote: "So a woman accuses you of rape. You make a bunch of statements accusing her of lying. She sues you for defamation. Your defense (such as it is) was that you were POTUS when you made the statements so you can't be sued personally. You litigate that FOR YEARS. You still have a chance at winning that argument. Meanwhile, the judge orders you to be deposed anyway. YOU GET BIG MAD. SO WHAT DO YOU DO??"
"You issue a BRAND NEW statement REPEATING all the earlier defamatory statements, but since you're no longer POTUS, you NO LONGER HAVE THAT DEFENSE you've been pushing for years that you made the statements while you were president!!! ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!" he added.
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