The US Department of Justice wanted to defend Donald Trump against a writer accusing him of rape, but a federal judge refused Tuesday, saying that Trump's statements for which he is being sued for defamation do not fall within the scope of his presidential duties.

76-year-old writer and journalist E. Jane Carroll filed a lawsuit against Trump in a New York state court in November 2019 for defaming her when he called her "utter lies" for saying he raped her in the fitting room in New York in the mid-1990s.

Trump said in an interview in June 2019 that he had never met her and that she was "not the type of woman he likes".

The complaint continues despite efforts by one of Trump's personal attorneys, Mark Kazowicz, to drop it.

At the beginning of September, two months before the presidential elections, the Justice Ministry requested that it replace Kazovic on the grounds that "the president was acting within the framework of his job" when he made his alleged defamatory remarks. But the defense deemed the argument "shocking" as he neared the moment when he might ask the president for DNA samples and testimony.

A federal judge ruled in Manhattan in favor of the defense Tuesday. Judge Lewis Kaplan said that the US President is not a "government employee,” and even if he is, his "alleged defamatory statements against Mrs. Carroll do not fall within the scope of his work."

The judge added that "his comments related to an alleged sexual assault dating back decades before he came to power, and the charges have nothing to do with official US affairs."

While the Justice Department can appeal the decision, Carroll and her lawyers welcomed it.

"When I spoke publicly to say what Donald Trump did to me in the locker room of a store, I was speaking against an individual. When Donald Trump called me a liar (...) he was not speaking as the president of the United States," Carol said in a statement.

She added, "As the judge acknowledged today, the question of whether President Trump raped me 20 years ago is at the heart of the file. We can finally return to this issue and clarify the truth."