A federal appeals court on Friday rejected President Donald Trump ’s attempt to make the United States government the defendant in writer E. Jean Carroll’s successful defamation lawsuit against him, explaining the request came “simply too late.”

In a 23-page opinion , the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals explained why it had swiftly denied Trump’s June motion to substitute the United States as the defendant under the Westfall Act, a federal law that shields officials from personal liability when sued over actions taken within the scope of their government roles.

Trump argued that his statements about Carroll, who accused him of raping her in the mid-1990s inside a New York Bergdorf Goodman store, were made in his official capacity as president. Carroll publicly accused Trump durin

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