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.
“You see, your honor, when I raped this woman it was an official function of the president of the United States! Obviously, presidential immunity must apply!”
I’m no lawyer so I could be way off base, but does this set the groundwork for some kind of precedent?
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.
Silly rabbit, precedents aren’t a thing anymore.
“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.
Tee hee.
Trump is single-handedly defining the legal limits of presidential assholery.
problem is, he might end up defining them as “entirely unchecked, retroactively”
How so?
There haven’t been any real consequences for anything he’s done, unless you count a mugshot.
And, thanks to Biden just ignoring the poor and middle class, he stands a very real chance of reelection.
Crazy that all of your comments are far right talking points
If you don’t want to hear valid critiques of Democratic governance, then do better.
They literally had the thinnest majority in the Senate including the poison pills that are Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. They cant carry out any of their platform with Republicans stabding in staunch opposition of anything that helps people more than shareholders.
Now see.
That is where Democrats truly excel: making excuses.
I’m not sure how you sat through four years of Trump and still believe that Biden is somehow magically powerless.
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“Don’t blame us Republicans! We’ve only been sabotaging all attempts to govern for decades!”
If kids could eat excuses there would be no such thing as student lunch debt, but since Democrats don’t do their job, there is.
you misspelled Republicans
Republicans Declare Banning Universal Free School Meals a 2024 Priority
Republicans Plan to Cut Free School Lunches
House Republican committee proposes cutting Community Eligibility Provision school lunch program
Congress made school meals free for 2 years. Now, Republicans don’t want to extend the program.
ahem…
Actually, no.
I’m giving Democrats proper credit for doing jack shit about it when we gave them power.
I don’t differentiate between perpetrator and collaborator when the net result is the same.
