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White House Justice Department (DoJ) Liaison Heidi Stirrup sought derogatory information late last year from a senior Justice Department official regarding a woman who claims she was raped by Donald Trump, according to who Stirrup directly sought information from.
The revelation suggests that the president’s allies were directly urging the Justice Department to try to unearth potentially damaging information about a woman who accused Trump of sexually assaulting her.
E Jean Carroll, a journalist and advice columnist, sued Trump in November 2019, alleging he defamed her when he denied her account of being raped by him. Carroll alleges that Trump sexually assaulted her in a locker room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale Manhattan department store, in late 1995 or early 1996.
Trump at the time responded to her allegations by claiming that Carroll was “totally” lying and tried to ridicule her by saying “she’s not my type”. These comments and others like them led Carroll to sue him.
Stirrup apparently believed the Justice Department had information that could assist the president’s legal defense in the lawsuit. The lawyer Stirrup asked for information about Carroll said Stirrup approached them shortly after a judge ruled that the Justice Department could not take over Trump’s defense.
Stirrup asked if the department discovered derogatory information about Carroll that they could share with her or the president’s private attorney. Stirrup also suggested that she could act as an intermediary between the ministry and people close to the president or his private legal team.
Stirrup also asked the official if the Justice Department had any information that Carroll or someone on her legal team had ties to the Democratic Party or partisan activists, which could have prompted her to falsely accuse the president.
Earlier, Trump himself, without citing any evidence, had suggested that his political opponents were behind the allegations: “If anyone has information that the Democratic Party is working with Ms. Carroll or New York Magazine [to whom Carroll first told her story], please let us know as soon as possible, ”Trump said.
The official Stirrup requested information from warned him, telling him his request was inappropriate.
The official recalled “having let him know in the strongest possible terms” that it was wrong to seek such information at first, and asked him not to do so in the future.
When it was learned that Stirrup had subsequently sought non-public information from other DOJ officials on other ongoing investigations, including electoral fraud, and non-public information regarding matters of concern to the White House, Stirrup has been told she is not welcome. at the Ministry of Justice and banned from the building.
On December 3, the Associated Press, citing three sources, reported Stirrup’s ban “after trying to pressure staff members to waive sensitive information about voter fraud and other matters. that it could transmit to the White House ”. However, it has not been previously reported that one of the issues that led to Stirrup’s ban was his search for information on the Carroll case.
It is not known whether Stirrup was acting alone or under the direction of the White House in the Carroll case.
But many consider it unlikely that Stirrup will conduct its investigation independently. Stirrup served as a liaison with the Department of Justice at a time when the White House was cutting links with virtually every major federal agency that she said could be unfair – while also advising their successors that they would no longer report to the agencies. to which they were assigned. but rather directly to the White House.
A spokesperson for the Justice Department declined to comment, saying he had failed to uncover more information.
The outcome of the Carroll defamation case can have immense political and legal consequences for Trump.
Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas, said that if the case comes to trial, Trump will have to “provide evidence and testify on the underlying rape allegation” and he could run the risk of perjury.
Failure to testify honestly in a civil case can have serious consequences for a president or other high profile politician. When former President Bill Clinton was prosecuted for sexual harassment and then admitted to giving misleading testimony in that case, he was impeached by the House of Representatives, acquitted by the US Senate after a trial, and voluntarily waived his claim. licensed to practice law for five years. years.
Judge Lewis Kaplan, of the Southern District of New York, who reviewed the Justice Department’s attempt to take over from Trump’s attorney, noted in an Oct. 26 ruling that any finding that Trump had defamed Carroll would likely be taken as an implied finding by a jury that Trump did indeed rape Carroll.
“Whether Mr. Trump actually raped Ms. Carroll seems to be at the heart of his trial. This is so because the truth or falsity of an accused’s alleged defamatory statements may be decisive in any defamation case, ”Kaplan said.
In early September, the Department of Justice, under then-Attorney General William Barr, sought to replace Trump’s private legal counsel with department lawyers, to defend him against Carroll’s trial. Justice officials have argued that while accusing Carroll of lying and further attacking her, Trump is acting in his official capacity as President of the United States.
Kaplan ruled that the Justice Department could not take over Trump’s defense, concluding that Trump’s alleged defamation of Carroll had nothing to do with his official duties as president or “the operation of government” or ” in the course of his employment ”.
The Justice Department has vowed to appeal Kaplan’s decision. But Joe Biden’s Justice Department is unlikely to move forward with such a call.
Justice officials and outside legal observers say the ministry’s position that the president was acting in an official capacity while allegedly defaming his alleged rape victim – for some 20 years earlier – is a position that would likely not prevail with most judges.
Last week, while announcing that he was appointing Federal Court of Appeal Judge Merrick Garland to be his new attorney general, the president-elect said he would end Trump’s practice of “treating the attorney general as his personal lawyer and the ministry as his personal office. “.
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