Donald Trump cannot be held personally responsible for “rude” and “disrespectful” comments he made while he was president about a woman who accused him of rape, Justice Department attorneys said Monday.

Attorneys told the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan that responding to allegations of misconduct lies within the activities that are part of any president’s office.

Trump was acting “within the reach of his office” by denying wrongdoing after White House reporters asked him about columnist E. Jean Carroll’s claims in a June 2019 book that he attacked her in mid-June. the 1990s in a high-end department store in Manhattan, was written by attorneys from the Washington office of the Justice Department.

“Such wrongdoing can include not only the serious criminal behavior charges filed here, but a variety of activities including fraud and embezzlement. Officials do not go outside the confines of their office simply because they are answering questions about allegations about their personal lives, ”they said.

Trump’s remarks about Carroll included that she was “totally lying” to sell her memoirs and that “she’s not my type.” Federal attorneys have said he had to respond to his claims because they essentially questioned his fitness for public office. In the newspapers on Monday, they wrote that Trump used “crude and disrespectful” language in questioning Carroll’s credibility.

The documents were filed after the Justice Department appealed a decision by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who ruled in October that Trump cannot use a law that protects federal employees from being individually sued for things they do within the purview of Your job.

Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney, said in a statement that it was horrible that Trump raped his client, but that it was “really shocking that the current Justice Department allowed Donald Trump to get away with lying about it, thereby depriving our client of his day in court. ”

“The Justice Department’s position is not only legally wrong, it is morally wrong, as it would give federal officials free license to cover up private sexual misconduct by publicly brutalizing any woman who has the courage to come forward,” he said. “Calling a woman you sexually assaulted a ‘liar’, ‘whore’ or ‘not my type’, as Donald Trump did here, is not the official act of an American president.”

In a statement, Carroll said: “As women across the country stand up and hold men accountable for assaults, the Justice Department is trying to prevent me from having that same right. I’m angry! IM offended!”

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