A federal judge Tuesday blocked the Justice Department's effort to intervene in a defamation case against President Donald Trump brought by E. Jean Carroll who claimed the president disparaged her when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the government's central argument that Trump was acting in his official duties as president last year when he denied magazine writer Carroll's allegation that he had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York City.
The Justice Department's intervention was seen as an effort to shield the president from the potentially damaging legal action in the midst of a re-election campaign. The judge's ruling effectively keeps Carroll's claim alive.