“The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday appealed a federal judge’s decision that kept President Donald Trump as the defendant in a defamation lawsuit filed by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who claims he raped her two decades ago. The judge, Lewis Kaplan, last month barred the Justice Department from having the U.S. government replace the presumptive lame-duck president as a defendant in the lawsuit. Kaplan’s ruling effectively saved Carroll’s lawsuit from dismissal. Attorney General William Barr has said that if the government was swapped in as a defendant, as he wanted it to be, then the case would be tossed out because the government had not waived sovereign immunity, as the protection from the government being sued is known as.”

“The Justice Department has argued that Trump was acting as a government employee when he said Carroll was lying and motivated by money with her allegation that he attacked her in a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in 1995 or 1996. Carroll’s lawyer Robbie Kaplan, who is not related to the judge, said, ‘We are not at all surprised that the current Department of Justice, which filed its motion to intervene in E Jean Carroll’s case at the request of the White House, is appealing Judge Kaplan’s decision… From the very start of this case, Donald Trump’s number one goal has been to avoid discovery and cause delay'” – CNBC.