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

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.