New York, Apr 21 (EFE) on whether the defendant should be the Department of Justice instead of Trump, since the events denounced occurred when he was president and, therefore, a government employee.
The 79-year-old writer accused Trump of rape in a book and magazine article in 2019, something he denied (when he was president) by publicly calling her a liar and making derogatory comments about her appearance, after that the author decided to launch a legal battle against him for defamation.
At the end of 2022, Carroll added to that lawsuit a new charge for injuries derived from the alleged rape as a legal period opened in New York to seek civil justice in cases related to sexual violence that until then were considered prescribed.
Trump’s lawyers had argued that, since their client is serving as president of the United States, it should be the Department of Justice that responded to the complaint and not the businessman.
But the Court of Appeals has decided today that it will not rule on the issue and has returned the case for consideration to the New York judge presiding over the process, Lewis Kaplan, who has already rejected the motion of the former president’s defense.
Kaplan has already decided that there are no reasons that justify the government being the defendant instead of Trump.
On April 17, the judge again rejected a new request for postponement of the process, which is scheduled to begin on April 25, requested by Trump’s defense.
Trump’s lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, had requested to postpone the start of the process for a month with the aim of “calming the waters” after the commotion caused in the city when the former president appeared before a judge on April 4, accused of falsify commercial documents.
For Tacopina, this period was necessary to favor a fair and impartial jury selection, especially after the great media coverage around said case that is being followed in the Supreme Court of the state of New York.
“There is no justification for its postponement. This case has nothing to do with the state process,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote, adding that the “suggestion that recent media coverage of the indictment could hinder the selection of a fair and impartial jury on the 25th is pure speculation.”
In addition, in his decision he pointed out that the media coverage of said event was a “significant or totally” consequence of the “invitation or provocation” of Trump himself.
