⁍ A federal judge rejected a U.S. government request to drop Donald Trump as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit.

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⁍ The decision is a defeat for Trump, because dropping him as a defendant would have shielded him from liability.

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– A federal judge on Tuesday refused to let the government substitute itself for President Trump as a defendant in a defamation lawsuit by a writer who said the president falsely denied raping her in a Manhattan department store a quarter century ago, Reuters reports. US District Judge Lewis Kaplan’s decision is a defeat for Trump, because dropping him as a defendant would have shielded him from liability and likely doomed former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll’s defamation claim.