Lawyers for E. Jean Carroll contest DOJ intervention in Trump defamation case
06 October 2020
Attorneys for writer E. Jean Carroll filed a motion in a New York court Monday contesting the Department of Justice's notice seeking to replace President Trump's personal lawyers in her defamation lawsuit against him.
Details: "There is not a single person in the United States — not the President and not anyone else — whose job description includes slandering women they sexually assaulted," Carroll's lawyers said in response to the DOJ's argument that Trump was "acting within the scope of his office" as president when he said in 2019 that Carroll was "lying" about claims that he raped her in the 1990s.
Why it matters: Carroll's lawyers' memorandum of law filing against the highly unusual intervention of the DOJ comes less than a month before the presidential election.
- The Elle magazine columnist has requested a DNA sample from the president as evidence of her sexual assault allegations in the defamation case.
- If the court permits the DOJ to replace Trump's attorneys, "Carroll's complaint would effectively be dismissed," per the New York Times.
What they're saying: The Trump administration did not immediately respond to Axios' request for comment. But a White House spokesperson told Axios last month that Carroll "was trying to sell a book" when she sued Trump for defamation "for denying her baseless claims" and that the DOJ's action was warranted because of a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act.
- Carroll has said in an emailed statement that Trump "knows that I told the truth."
Read the memorandum of law, via DocumentCloud:
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.