U.S. President Joe Biden's Justice Department aimed to shield the presidency, not Donald Trump, with its latest action in a defamation case brought by a woman who accuses the former president of raping her, legal experts have said.
The case is one of two in recent weeks in which the administration has taken a position that shields the Republican Trump or those who served in his administration, angering liberals in Biden's own Democratic Party.
On Monday the Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, urged a court to substitute the U.S. government as the defendant in the lawsuit brought by E. Jean Carroll, a writer who accuses Trump of raping her a quarter century ago and defaming her by denying it while he was president.