Donald Trump has a lot of problems right now, so many that it can be easy to remember all of them. In between Letitia James’ New York State lawsuit, the Justice Department investigation over classified documents, and the newly relaunched Jan. 6 hearings, he’s somehow finding time to address another headache: The defamation lawsuit brought upon him by journalist E. Jean Carroll. Trump is set to finally be deposed this week, but he may have already screwed himself by being an oversharing idiot on social media.
In 2019, Carroll publicly accused the then-president of sexually assaulting her in Manhattan’s Bergdorf Goodman department store in the mid-’90s. Trump didn’t just deny the accusations; he did it in his usual reckless, insult comic fashion. He claimed she was “totally lying,” that he knew “nothing about her,” and added that she was “not my type.” That led Carroll to sue him for defamation, but Trump’s lawyers have long argued that he can’t be sued because he was president, and therefore protected by law.
Jump three years, and soon before Trump’s deposition in the case, which he has repeatedly tried to delay, he may have shot himself in the foot. Last week, after word that the deposition could no longer be delayed, he took to his failing Twitter clone and, in a series of unhinged posts, basically spouted the same claims that got him sued in the first place.
After calling the suit a “complete con job,” he kept going. “It is a Hoax and a lie, just like all the other Hoaxes that have been played on me for the past seven years.” He then added the one line that may have really gotten him in trouble: “And, while I am not supposed to say it, I will. This woman is not my type!”
Problem is, he’s no longer president and therefore can no longer claim presidential privilege. Barbara McQuade, formerly Detroit’s top federal prosecutor, told Vice that she thinks Carroll shouldn’t let this pass.
“ [Carroll] should amend her complaint to include an additional count based on the new statement,” McQuade said. “Because Trump is no longer president, this statement was most certainly not made in the scope of his federal employment.”
And to think Trump may have gotten away with it had he not returned to social media after getting booted from several services for allegedly inciting violence that almost overturned democracy.
(Via Vice)