Judge rejects US government request to drop Trump from rape accuser's defamation lawsuit
NEW YORK (REUTERS) – A federal judge on Tuesday (Oct 27) rejected a US government request to drop Mr Donald Trump as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit by a writer who said the president falsely denied raping her in a Manhattan department store a quarter century ago.
US District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan refused to let the government substitute itself for Mr Trump as a defendant in former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit.
Judge Kaplan’s decision is a defeat for Mr Trump, because dropping him as a defendant would have shielded him from liability and likely doomed Ms Carroll’s defamation claim.
