Supreme Court Ruling in Bill Clinton Sexual Misconduct Case Could Spell Trouble for Trump
As president, Donald Trump may be required to testify in a defamation suit brought by one of the women who allege he assaulted them.
A former contestant on Trump’s TV show “The Apprentice” alleges he sexually assaulted her in 2007. (Flickr / CC 2.0)
A 1997 Supreme Court decision that ultimately doomed the presidency of Bill Clinton could come back to haunt Donald Trump.
In Clinton v. Jones, the high court ruled for the first time that a sitting president may be sued for actions taken before he or she took office. The court specified that these actions do not have to relate to the office of the presidency.
On Tuesday, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s TV show “The Apprentice,” filed a lawsuit alleging that Trump defamed her in his response to her claim that he sexually assaulted her during a job interview in 2007.
Zervos’ attorney, Gloria Allred, said Tuesday she would seek to have Trump deposed under oath. It was then-President Clinton’s deposition regarding his relationship with Paula Jones that ultimately led to his impeachment in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Trump has issued a blanket denial of the sexual misconduct charges that Zervos and more than a dozen other women have made against him. In doing so, he has accused the women of lying and of fabricating the alleged incidents. This is the basis of Zervos’ defamation suit.
The Washington Post noted Tuesday that the Clinton case “shows the potential peril of such suits for a sitting president.”
— Posted by Gregory Glover
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