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.

  • gregorum@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    Trump is single-handedly defining the legal limits of presidential assholery.

    • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Which would be fantastic, if it weren’t for the fact that he has a very real shot at returning to the white house and making this all a moot point.

      I still can’t believe so many people don’t see him for the criminal, con-man, grifter, anti-christ, etc that he is.

      • MotoAsh@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        I still cannot believe that people are so shocked to find out so much of the country have been brainwashed to be hateful bigots, ready to yell at their neighbor for wearing a rainbow shirt before they’ll yell at Raytheon et. al. for profiting from the few literal genocides the US has weapons going to right now.

        There ARE terrible people in the world, and laws don’t magically put them behind bars.

      • paddirn@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        He’s the literal embodiment of the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, wrath, envy, lust, gluttony and sloth, yet christians would disown family for the chance at sucking him off. It feels like we’ve crossed over into Bizarro world.

        • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          A lot of Christians see him as the anti-christ, but that means Jesus is comin’ round the mountain!

          “Jesus is going to come at the end of days (according to a book I tell people I read) so if I cause the end of days Jesus is going to show up and save me from it!”

      • Alien Nathan Edward@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I still can’t believe so many people don’t see him for the criminal, con-man, grifter, anti-christ, etc that he is.

        you don’t have to make sense of it. they’re all lying. they know what he is and don’t care, because he’ll let them hurt who they want to hurt.

    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      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.