A federal appeals court rejected Donald Trump’s use of presidential immunity in a bid to dismiss a civil defamation lawsuit brought by former magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll.
The judges found that Trump waived using presidential immunity as a defense by not raising it earlier in the litigation over Carroll’s claim that Trump defamed her when, as president, he denied her allegations of sexual assault. The appeals court also affirmed the lower court’s ruling that rejected Trump’s motion for summary judgement.
“This case presents a vexing question of first impression: whether presidential immunity is waivable. We answer in the affirmative and further hold that Donald J. Trump (‘Defendant’) waived the defense of presidential immunity by failing to raise it as an affirmative defense in his answer to E. Jean Carroll’s (‘Plaintiff’s’) complaint, which alleged that Defendant defamed her by claiming that she had fabricated her account of Defendant sexually assaulting her in the mid1990s.,” the court ruled.
I’m no lawyer so I could be way off base, but does this set the groundwork for some kind of precedent?
“In May 1997 the Supreme Court unanimously rejected Bill Clinton’s claim that the Constitution immunized him from civil lawsuits”
Isn’t that already a precedent?
Roe vs Wade was a precedent.
With the current supreme Court? Who the hell knows.
Also no lawyer, but my understanding is that it doesn’t. The appeals court hasn’t ruled that presidential immunity wouldn’t be a valid defence, but rather that Trump should have brought it up earlier if he wanted to use it.
Silly rabbit, precedents aren’t a thing anymore.
Courts often take the most narrow view possible to answer the question. This is an example of that. The only question answered is “Can a president raise the issue of immunity at this stage in the trial”, with the answer being “no”. They didn’t comment on if presidential immunity is valid in this situation. The only precedent set is that presidential immunity must be brought up at te start of litigation.