During his presidential campaign, Joe Biden rightfully called out Donald Trump for using the Department of Justice as his personal attorney. Trump wanted the Justice Department to defend him from a defamation lawsuit filed by a woman who accused him of assaulting her and then making crude and disparaging remarks about her while in office. 

And now, under the Biden administration, the new leadership of the Justice Department has maintained the same legal position, stating that Trump cannot be sued for remarks he made about her as president. The defamation lawsuit is at risk of being dismissed.

The Justice Department should not be shielding Donald Trump from lawsuits related to sexual abuse allegations. 

In November 2019, the author and long-time Elle columnist E. Jean Carroll filed a lawsuit against Trump for using his powerful platform to paint her as a liar. Trump even released a public statement as president denying her sexual assault allegations against him.

In a brief filed with a federal appeals court in New York, the Justice Department acknowledged that Trump's comments about Carroll were "crude and disrespectful," but argued that Trump "could not be sued for defamation because he had made the supposedly offending statements as part of his official duties as president," according to The New York Times.  

No one, much less the president of the United States, should be able to use their position of power to slander a survivor of sexual assault. The Justice Department should not let this precedent stand.

Sign the petition on the left to tell the Department of Justice to stop shielding Donald Trump from lawsuits related to sexual abuse allegations!