Trump lashes out after Justice Department no longer says presidency shields him from defamation suit

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump has lashed out on social media against the U.S. Justice Department after it stopped supporting his claim that the presidency shields him from liability against a defamation lawsuit. He said Wednesday on his social media platform that the reversal announced a day earlier by the department was part of the “political Witch Hunt” he faces while campaigning for the presidency as a Republican. The defamation lawsuit was brought by writer E. Jean Carroll after Trump denounced her 2019 claims in a memoir that he raped her in 1996 at a luxury Manhattan department store.