Former President Donald Trump wants to take presidential immunity even further now — and use it to wipe out the civil judgments against him in the E. Jean Carroll case.
The Supreme Court's controversial decision this month found that presidents have a presumption of immunity for "official" acts but not "unofficial" ones, punting for now to lower courts to figure out which is which, while eliminating or sharply limiting the ability of prosecutors to use motive or certain types of executive branch evidence to determine whether an act is official. It doomed any chances of special counsel Jack Smith's federal election conspiracy case going to trial before the November election, and breathed fresh life into Trump's attempts to get his Manhattan criminal conviction and the election racketeering cases in Georgia eliminated.
But that's not far enough for Trump. In a footnote of his filing to try to get the Manhattan conviction dismissed, he hinted he also wants to use the Supreme Court's decision to wipe out the more than $80 million he owes in judgments in the civil cases brought by writer E. Jean Carroll.
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"Prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump, Judge Kaplan rejected President Trump’s Presidential immunity defense to allegedly defamatory Tweets," said the footnote. Trump abrogates the reasoning in Carroll for several reasons, including that (1) Judge Kaplan did not define the 'outer perimeter' of Presidential power as that which is 'palpably beyond his authority' ... (2) Judge Kaplan did not apply the 'presumption of immunity' to outer-perimeter acts, as required by Trump ... and (3) Judge Kaplan impermissibly took into account the plaintiff’s allegations of President Trump’s motive in making posting the challenged Tweets — an exercise forbidden by Trump."
Carroll alleged that Trump raped her in a New York City department store in the 1990s. When Trump repeatedly denied this and asserted Carroll was lying to advance her career, Carroll sued him for defamation over the harassment and reputational harm Trump's accusations caused her.
The case is already under appeal by Trump's legal team for separate reasons.
