A New York judge has given the green light to a lawsuit brought by former Apprentice contestant Summer Zervos against President Trump in an opinion beginning with, “No one is above the law.”
The suit stems from Trump’s response to Zervos’ public allegations that he had sexually harassed her. He issued vehement denials, then attacked her—on Twitter, of course, but also in speeches. She’s suing for defamation.
A judge in New York ruled on Tuesday that Clinton v. Jones, a unanimous Supreme Court ruling that established that a sitting president was not “absolutely immune” from civil lawsuits over actions he took before he was president, applies with equal force to a case brought by Summer Zervos, a former Apprentice contestant who is accusing Trump of defaming her during the presidential campaign. “No one is above the law,” wrote Judge Jennifer Schecter in a brisk, 18-page ruling in which she declined to dismiss the lawsuit.
It’s rich that the Republicans’ pursuit of President Clinton generated the precedent that makes Zervos’ suit possible.
Cristian Farias spells out the significance of this threshold decision in New York Magazine:
In practical terms, this means that Zervos’s lawsuit is alive and well and that her lawyers may now want to substantiate her claims by seeking discovery — the exchange of materials prior to trial that may even include a deposition of Trump himself. Because he is not known to be reliable under oath, Zervos v. Trump ought to get really interesting real soon. Alternatively, Trump may choose to fight today’s decision and appeal it all the way to the Supreme Court if he’d like. Far more likely, as he has done with other private suits since winning the presidency, he will just settle this one out of court and call it a day. Unless what he really wants is to set a new precedent for whichever Democrat succeeds him in the Oval Office.
Trump’s done his best to avoid depositions. Department of Justice attorneys even conceded a major legal point in a First Amendment case against Trump, to their significant detriment, to avoid discovery, which could involve subjecting multiple officials to depositions.
Godspeed, Summer Zervos.