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Tag: trump rape allegations
Barr Wields Federal Power To Protect Trump In Rape Defamation Case

Barr Wields Federal Power To Protect Trump In Rape Defamation Case

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

Attorney General Bill Barr's tenure at the Justice Department was further stained on Tuesday when officials announced in a court filing that the U.S. government will be defending President Donald Trump in a defamation case.

Trump is being sued by columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused the president of raping her in the '90s. In his denial of the charge, Trump cast aspersions on Carroll and essentially branded her a liar, despite the fact that confidants of the columnist have come forward to say they were told of the assault contemporaneously. Carroll has taken legal action against Trump to hold him to account for his alleged defamation, and she seeks to have him deposed — a risky proposition for the president known for lying constantly.

But on Tuesday, Americans learned that their government's Justice Department is intervening in the case, claiming that the allegations implicate Trump in his official capacity as president. According to the filing, Barr delegated the authority to determine whether a federal employee's actions fall with the scope of their official duties to James G. Touhey, Jr., director of the torts branch. (Though it's hard to believe this kind of action doesn't happen in Barr's Justice Department without his at least implicit approval and support.)

The filing claimed:

[The] Department of Justice, certified that the defendant employee, President Trump, was acting
within the scope of his office or employment at the time of the incident out of which the claim
arose. The claim asserts defamation based on a written statement issued to the press and two
statements the President made in interviews in June 2019 in which the President vehemently
denied accusations made in Plaintiff's then-forthcoming book. The President explained that
these accusations were false and that the incident she alleged never happened. Acting pursuant
to 28 C.F.R. § 15.4(a), the Attorney General's delegate certified that President Trump was acting
within the scope of his office as President of the United States when he publicly denied as false
the allegations made by Plaintiff.

Because Trump was supposedly acting in his official capacity, the department argued, he cannot be sued as a private citizen. The filing says that if the judge accepts these claims, the case should be dismissed.

But many argued that the defense is absurd on its face.

"Hard to imagine a general counsel's office anywhere in corporate America would argue that an executive sneering 'she's not my type' about a woman who had accused the executive of rape was part of doing that executive's job, but that's what Bill Barr's DOJ is arguing," said legal analyst Luppe Luppen.

Slate journalist Mark Joseph Stern was even more scathing.

"Not sure if people outside the legal world are grasping what a shocking and profoundly disgusting move this is, an appalling and irredeemable debasement of the Justice Department, a direct threat to the very legitimacy of an agency that is responsible for enforcing federal law," he wrote on Twitter. "Barr stepping in to protect Trump from E. Jean Carroll is banana republican strong man shit of the most odious and corrosive kind. This crosses a rubicon."

CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig said: "I can't remotely conceive how DOJ can argue with a straight face that it is somehow within the official duties of the president to deny a claim that he committed sexual assault years before he took office."

Overall, the effort seemed doomed to fail, unless the courts decide that nearly anything the president says is within his official duties.

But even if Trump can't prevail in court, the gambit gives him what he always wants: time. It will likely take months to resolve the issues stirred up by the Justice Department, stalling the Carroll case from taking any substantive steps until after the election.

This is how Trump always operates, and it's been amazingly successful. He can often outlast his opponents in legal battles — whether the U.S. Congress, a Manhattan D.A., or an angry contractor he refused to pay — by refusing to ever stop causing trouble. But now, he's has the full force of the federal government to help him.


But on Tuesday, Americans learned that their government's Justice Department is intervening in the case, claiming that the allegations implicate Trump in his official capacity as president. According to the filing, Barr delegated the authority to determine whether a federal employee's actions fall with the scope of their official duties to James G. Touhey, Jr., director of the torts branch. (Though it's hard to believe this kind of action doesn't happen in Barr's Justice Department without his at least implicit approval and support.)

The filing claimed:

How The Press Rewards Republican Cowardice In The Trump Era

How The Press Rewards Republican Cowardice In The Trump Era

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

After Donald Trump ignited a firestorm by launching a racist attack on four Democratic members of Congress, the Beltway press last week temporarily revised a time-honored journalism tradition of forcing members of the president’s party to respond publicly to controversial behavior. The results were utterly predictable, of course, with most Republicans refusing to criticize Trump’s latest bout of open bigotry. But even the recent media questions for the GOP seemed muted, given the stunning and historic nature of Trump’s racist behavior.

The sad truth is, the press mostly gave up a long time ago on holding Republican lawmakers accountable for Trump’s erratic behavior. Faced with a party that has completely capitulated to Trump’s unbalanced ways, reporters seem to have lost interest in the pursuit.

Why isn’t there constant, nonstop coverage detailing how radical the Republican Party has become, and how any hints of dissent in the age of Trump are cultishly hidden from view? Instead of vivid portraits of a party abandoning its principles as GOP lawmakers obediently fall in line behind Trump’s nasty behavior, we get coverage about how savvy Republicans are for holding their tongues about Trump and refusing to hold him accountable—about how strategic Republicans are being in allowing someone like Trump to maintain a stranglehold grip on the party.

Indeed, Republicans seem to have cracked the media code: By remaining devoutly loyal to Trump—or, at least, obediently silent—they’ve drained the oxygen the press needs to file stories about the type of turmoil Trump may be creating in the party with his buffoonish and offensive antics. Now entirely bored with the prospect of asking nonemotive Republican lawmakers for their take on Trump’s latest outrage, journalists for the most part have stopped trying to hold party members accountable for Trump’s actions.

We saw a brief flurry of activity in the wake of Trump’s racist tirade in recent days. But the media pursuit of Republicans seemed restrained compared to the avalanche of coverage that would accompany demands that basically every elected Democrat in the country provide a comment if a Democratic president ever acted as hatefully and erratically as Trump has this week—or for the last two years.

Newsrooms seem to have simply accepted GOP silence. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “makes a practice of avoiding comment on remarks by President Trump that have electrified social media,” The New York Times recently reported. Republicans “also believe that, in most cases, the firestorm lasts only so long and will be quickly followed by the next iteration, making it pointless to get caught up in the repeating cycle.” Oh, well; I guess that takes care of that. Apparently now, if a political party essentially takes a vow of silence with regard to hateful behavior by the head of that party, the press shrugs its shoulders and moves on, abandoning all efforts to hold public officials accountable for those they support politically.

After being worn down by the GOP’s cowardly capitulation to Trump, reporters have most often given Republicans a pass. Simultaneously, the press has decided to devote its time and resources to playing up dissension within the Democratic Party, where members are more open and honest about their interparty conflicts. The Beltway press in recent weeks has given significant time and space to the story of internal dissension with the Democratic House caucus, which centers on a handful of freshman Congresswomen and their policy conflicts with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The press has consistently leaned on the “civil war” narrative in reporting on Democrats, as fewer than five House members wage a public battle with the leadership. Contrast that to how reporters are playing Republican reaction to Trump in recent days.

“While a smattering of Republicans chastised Mr. Trump on Monday, most party leaders in the House and Senate and much of the rank-and-file remained quiet about the president’s weekend tweets directing dissenters to ‘go back’ where they came from,” the Times reported. Interestingly, that language also perfectly sums up the so-called Democratic civil war, in which most “party leaders” and “much of the rank-and-file” have remained quiet on the issue. But for some reason, the two similar scenarios are covered quite differently. When just a handful of Republicans criticize Trump, it illustrates party unity. And when just a handful of Democrats criticize Pelosi, it illustrates a civil war.

Obviously, the circumstances are different in that a lot more Republicans ought to be criticizing Trump for his blatantly racist attacks on sitting members of Congress. And I’m not suggesting the internal strife within the Democratic Party isn’t news, because it is. But there is a double standard in play with how the press treats each party in terms of members having to answer for prominent party leaders.

We also saw that recently with coverage of Joe Biden and Trump. Both made headlines for how they have treated women in the past, although the actual behavior couldn’t be more different. But only one party was pressed on the issue of accountability. Last month, longtime advice columnist and writer E. Jean Carroll claimed that Trump had once raped her inside the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City, when he lunged at her and pushed her up against a fitting room wall. That disturbing news story broke on a Friday afternoon and was completely ignored by all the Sunday network morning shows two days later. None of the Republicans who appeared on the show were asked about Trump’s behavior, or asked to condemn it. Yet last winter, when some women complained about the way Joe Biden interacted with them, especially with unwelcome touching in public, the allegations were covered extensively on the Sunday shows.

Note: Democrats were repeatedly pressed about whether Biden’s behavior was “disqualifying,” while Republicans weren’t even asked about a rape charge against Trump.

The signal the press is sending remains clear: Republican cowardice in the age of Trump gets a pass.