Justice Department can’t represent Trump in defamation case over alleged rape, judge rules

NEW YORK — In a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump, a Manhattan federal court judge ruled Tuesday that the Department of Justice cannot intervene on Trump’s behalf in a defamation lawsuit brought by a magazine columnist who accused him of sexual assault in a department store in the 1990s. The ruling by Judge Lewis Kaplan means E. Jean Carroll’s lawsuit against Trump — in his personal …