LogFAQs > #979120000

Ruvan22 posted...

Why did Garland initially want to support Trump in the defamation case?

There's no statements from Garland, it's just that it's his DOJ and he controls the operations, so if he didn't want the DOJ making this argument on behalf of Trump they wouldn't have.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/07/biden-justice-department-defends-trump-in-suit-over-rape-denial-492088

In the filing with the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Justice Department insisted that it was not endorsing Trumps conduct toward the writer, E. Jean Carroll, even as it argued that a law governing suits against federal officials justified the governments move to take over the former presidents defense in the case.

In making and defending a Westfall Act certification the Department of Justice is not endorsing the allegedly tortious conduct or representing that it actually furthered the interests of the United States. Nor is a reviewing court making any such determinations in upholding the Departments certification, the acting head of the Justice Departments Civil Division, Brian Boynton, wrote in the new submission.

Boynton also adhered to the stance the Justice Department adopted in the case last September: that Trump was acting in the course of his official duties as president when he denied Carrolls rape allegations from more than two decades ago.

Speaking to the public and the press on matters of public concern is undoubtedly part of an elected officials job, Boynton added. Courts have thus consistently and repeatedly held that allegedly defamatory statements made in that context are within the scope of elected officials employment including when the statements were prompted by press inquiries about the officials private life.

The new brief amounts to a Biden administration ratification of the move that then-Attorney General William Barr made last year to assume Trumps defense in the case a move that drew widespread criticism over the deployment of government attorneys to fight the defamation suit Carroll filed after Trump denied her account of the alleged rape. But the more significant impact of Barrs move was that, if successful, it would almost certainly have scuttled the litigation.

A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on which department leaders made the decision to stay the course in the Carroll suit, but a spokesperson for the White House said it played no role in the decision and emphasized that President Joe Biden had set a new standard.

So it is a policy that started in September 2020 and for some reason Garland's DOJ seemed to mindlessly continue because it was already in the process of happening, and part of the article points out that's a rather common occurrence for changing administrations. We see this often happen frequently with administrations keeping special investigators on a case from one admin to the next.

After spending most of the article's opening making it sound like it's Biden's administration pushing for this, that last paragraph I posted clearly outlines how Biden's admin is not endorsing this argument and says they have a different standard.

The article feels only slightly less disingenuous than Hur's report which early on chides Biden for his careless handling of the documents and condemns him, then on page 200 says there's no evidence he intentionally mishandled documents.