Court mulls: Was Trump’s reply to rape claim part of job?

By JENNIFER PELTZ
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Federal appeals judges are weighing whether former President Donald Trump can be held liable in a defamation case that concerns his response to a rape allegation. At a hearing Friday in New York, the judges asked multiple questions about the line between public and private conduct for a commander-in-chief. Trump and the Justice Department want to swap the U.S. government in for Trump himself as the defendant in writer E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit. She says he raped her in the 1990s and slandered her by saying she was lying when she came forward publicly in 2019.