Federal judge blocks DOJ from defending Trump in Carroll rape defamation case
27 October 2020
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the Justice Department's attempted intervention on behalf of President Trump in writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit against him, after she accused him of raping her in a dressing room in the mid-1990s.
Catch up quick: The agency argued that Trump was "acting within the scope of his office" as president when he said in 2019 that Caroll was "lying" about her claim.
- Trumpdenied the rape accusation last summer, stating that Carroll was "totally lying" and claiming they'd never met. He added that Carroll is "not my type."
What he's saying: U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan notes that the Justice Department "inserted itself into the case" after a state court rejected Trump's claim "that he could not be sued because he currently is president."
- Kaplan writes that, if Caroll's defamation suit was treated as a case against the U.S. instead of Trump as an individual — as the DOJ has moved to reinterpret it — then "it could well be argued that this case must be dismissed" due to stipulations in the Federal Tort Claims Act.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.